To further elaborate, you also have trips that have commercial DH’s, CML (company paid tickets on pax carriers), either on the front end of a trip (positioning), the middle of a trip, or on the back end of a trip (depositioning). The company selects particular flights with an associated cost (index) either to or from a domicile (Mid trip CMLs not included). If you want to take different flights, they will pay up to this amount. For example, scheduled for SDF BWI PHL the company found and chose a flight for $200. But you want to use, say...Delta to boost your miles, or it’s your airline preference, or it leaves at a better time, whatever (this is called deviating (from schedule)); as long as that ticket price is $200 or less (hint: it often isn’t) you are free to change it. If it costs more you are still free to change it but that will come out of your travel bank. If there aren’t enough funds in your travel bank then they will payroll deduct the difference from your paycheck. Travel bank is built up from buying tickets less than the index or not using any ticket and the company’s credits 67% of the difference to your travel bank. You can start from anywhere to get into position. For a depositioning CML, you can only go to your residence. I believe this is for tax reasons. They let you list 2 addresses and you can change the second one to some extent. All good? Here’s the rub...

So far we have been talking about fully non refundable tickets. These are naturally more expensive (though still discounted through agreements with our travel agency). You CAN change your ticket to a non refundable and almost always get below the index. The risk is that if you don’t make the flight you are paying for that ticket so the trick here is to wait until within 24 hours or so before committing to a non refundable to be somewhat safe - note: this comes with the risk that there might no be any seats left or they raised the prices in the last few days.

Also, you live in a hub city, PHL. ATL, NYC, LAX, etc are all hub cities and the pax airlines love to charge a premium for flying directly to/from these cities. SDF is not a hub city so the indexes from there are typically less than flying out of hub cities. Eg. SDF BWI PHL on SWA is $200. SDF PHL on AA =$300. Imagine you live in ATL and the trip starts in PHL, you’re gunna be over the index to get to work. What to do? Use your travel bank to buy a ticket over the index. Note: only the difference is taken out of your bank. . Not enough funds? Get yourself to SDF and take the company flight as prescribed. You could use your JS ability / Zed fares to get to work but there is some argument / grey area against doing so and it sort of defeats the purpose of having a CML trip in the first place. There are some absolute no-no’s as well such as buying a ticket then using your nonrev access to get on a flight. Also, on reserve you can deviate. But good news, you already live in PHL so you automatically bank 67% of the index and get paid for the scheduled DH by being home. The key to all this is to build up a bank balance.

Last, we keep the miles we earn from CML tickets. Not uncommon to see guys with upper tier status luggage tags in the sort. One can get to the mid levels of a particular airline pretty easily in fact and the accumulation of miles is a great way to get to or from work when you don’t have a CML on your schedule. I don’t even waste time jumpseating or using Zed fares anymore. I also flat out buy tickets from time to time when the prices are right. With my status I get upgraded, often to first.

To summarize, we have lots of trips with paid tickets to and or from work. The catch is that it’s not always an affordable perk. Using miles, buying tickets, or nonrevving are other options.