RE: the flight credit never expiring.
Let's say I'm a week away from my trip and my plans change. I can cancel that flight, get my money "back" in the form of a flight credit and then use that to book new flights in 2025 (for example)? If so, this is a HUGE change.
We were scheduled to fly to Disney World for Marathon Weekend followed by a cruise this past January. To make sure we remained healthy for those two events, we decided to drive literally days before. But then we had to use those flights by June (when we originally booked them). We didn't have a trip planned, so we used the credits to visit my snowbird parents, which was nice, but not necessary. It would have been better to have the credits to use for a future vacation flight.