[toomuchtodo]

Airlines are preventing a secondary market. Unfavorable for your use case, but also prevents scalping airline tickets (while allowing airlines to attempt to maximize revenue). There are always tradeoffs and compromise.

To hack around this, I've used Southwest Airlines; I can buy tickets for folks and if they can't travel, we cancel the ticket(s) and keep the travel funds banked for another time. I hope this is potentially helpful information.

https://simpleflying.com/why-airlines-dont-allow-name-change...

[pxx]

except Southwest is easily the most expensive carrier these days and other carriers have also adopted flexibility

hopefully their new changes such as allowing their fares to be indexed will make them close to being competitive at some point. but today you really only get near-competitiveness (it's still bad) if you're going to check both pieces of luggage and have no way of getting free luggage on any other carrier.

even buying and throwing away tickets, depending on your probability of travel, might pay for itself in one trip.

[toomuchtodo]

People who compare Southwest to Frontier and Spirit are not serious people. Southwest is a premium offering, if folks want to ride cattle car a la carte, I encourage them to, just don't ruin the established brand of SWA. I would rather fly dead on Southwest than alive on another domestic carrier.

[BenjiWiebe]

First I've heard of southwest being a premium option. Even Wikipedia lists it as a budget airline.

[vel0city]

Flying on Southwest is generally a more pleasant experience than flying economy on United, American, or any of the other major carriers IMO. It won't beat flying business class or whatever though, but I'm not that rich.

The seats are more comfortable. Every plane has pretty good in-flight WiFi (paid) and free movies/TV you can watch on your own device. Drinks and snacks included. Two checked bags free. About the only thing I miss from the big carriers is charging/power outlets at the seats, but I hear that's coming.

[toomuchtodo]

Value is subjective. I'm going to pay for business or first when the whole plane gets there at the same time? Nah, I'm paying for a great experience if something goes wrong, bags included, and reliable air travel between two points. It's low key white glove service in a world of race to the bottom customer service and trying to remove every touchpoint possible between the business and the customer to save pennies.

https://community.southwest.com/t5/Blog/Southwest-Airlines-R...

https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/travel/is-southwest-airli...

[vel0city]

I booked a flight a couple of weeks ago. Southwest was still cheaper than American and Delta for the flight I was looking for, even before thinking about two free checked bags. Adding in the fact their seats are bigger and free checked bags, it is definitely a better value to me.