I would buy tickets to Houston now; if we don't win just cancel and get the future credit, unless you never travel. We're going to Dublin next summer so I went ahead and bought after we beat Oregon to all 3 sites out of DC. LAX was $700, New Orleans was like $415 and Houston for $320. So now I have the LAX credit, and the same flights to MSY are double. Only spending 1 day there, but whatever.
I expect a few airlines to add flights between Alaska, United and Delta out of Seattle.
The only other thing to maybe consider from the PNW is that Spirit flies into the New Orleans from Cancun. You can go CUN-MSY on 12/31 and back on 1/2 for like $300. You might be able to pull off some Cancun time for the same costs as just flying to New Orleans. Yeah, Spirit sucks, so be aware of that, but thought I would toss it out there for those with flexibility.