One positive development we’ve seen in the airline industry as a result of the coronavirus pandemic is the elimination of change fees on most kinds of tickets. It’s not just that airlines temporarily waived change fees, but the major carriers have ”permanently” eliminated change fees (whatever that means, because nothing in life is permanent).
Continue reading: United Airlines Improves No Change Fee Policy
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I wonder how businesses are going to expense this out. Say I buy a ticket for one of my employees and pay $400 to have him/her fly to X city. They cannot for whatever reason and we cancel the ticket and get the voucher(s). Previously with change fees we'd just expense that to the travel budget. Since we'd essentially get the value back would the voucher be issued in the name of the passenger? In all my years of flying I have never had to initiate a change flight and never experienced this.
Surprising, but I have verified this is at least a temporary policy. Travel agencies can refund wholly unused USA point of origin tickets for a $100.00 penalty using a waiver through 31DEC21. Who knows whether it sticks.
Note that travel agents can still make changes for free for equal/higher priced travel (as before)--there is just no policy to preserve any residual value if new fare is lower.
@Craig, this does not really impact corporate travel budgets. Historically, companies simply expensed the change fee when the ticket was reissued. Now there is no change fee to expense, so I suppose most will just expense the ticket cost as it's used for travel.
In the case of a refund, the penalty gets expensed and the remainder is returned to the original FOP.
About time! UA's flight credits are a pain to use unless the flights were more expensive than the credit!
you’re a business traveler booking a $5,000 business class ticket that isn’t refundable for cash.
Why would this be an issue? Most work tickets are not paid by the traveler but by their corporate overlord.
Could Lucky or a United expert put this in terms of FFC and ETC? If you use FFC for a cheaper flight, you get the residual as ETC? And if you use ETC for less than the full value it just keeps the residual on it?
Think back when you had to cancel your itinerary....Again, when the customer ‘cancels’, you were slapped with a ridiculous extra fee. Pick and choose your vice when booking, one outweighs the other.
Are award flights able to be redeposited free of charge if I cancel my trip? I'm assuming the tax and fees associated with the trip won't be refundable.
Does this apply to credits from past cancellations as well? I have a credit from a flight I cancelled in January that I have waited to use because for every flight I would use it on, I would lose residual credit. If it doesn’t apply I may just apply this to an even more expensive flight to cancel right away and keep the credit.
Award tickets will be redeposited in your frequent flier account for no charge unless within 30 days of the flight in which case the fee is $100.00
I'm so glad you put "permanently remove change fees" in quotes because it is absolutely ridiculous to believe that they won't bring them right back in a year or two when travel returns to normal and it gets quietly added back in the terms and conditions. In no way do I believe flight changes will be free in ten years.
"This feature is only available when booking directly with United, and it’s initially only available through United’s app and by phone"
Does this mean if you booked online, then you need to go to app or phone to cancel and get the credit. Not clear why this won't work on the online version?
Does this mean if there is a fate drop, you can cancel and rebook and get a vouche for the difference?
Now it all makes sense. I called to rebook a flight two days ago with FTC and the agent said the residual value would go back to my card
Do we have more info on this? My travel agent called her rep today to refund a $2,000 nonrefundable ticket and the rep said that the article establishing the “new” policy was a hoax. She was told I’ll get a voucher for the unused portion of the ticket after I book a flight with it that can be used through the travel agent. Also, FWIW, I’ve been 1k for 20 years and always book through an agent. I’ve always gotten vouchers for the unused portion of a partially used ticket. It seems nothing has changed.
I take groups twice a year to Honduras for Mission work. I just had to cancel our June 2-20, 2021 trip because Honduras has a surge in covid cases. United Groups informed me that we will be hit with a $200 change fee each for all 20 tickets... So much for 'No Change fees Ever!"
I have a question re: my current situation. I have two tickets for a 3-stop trip at the end of the month (paid $550 each) but need to change them to regular roundtrip (one destination). I searched this new R/T route via United and it's coming up as $277 as a new purchase, but if I go through the "Change Trip" procedure the same itinerary is coming up as $336, almost as if they ARE trying to charge me a fee to change. However, I'm noticing that if I completely cancel, they'll give me the total amount ($1100) as Future Flight Credit... so I'm wondering if I do that and then search for the new itinerary, will it still show up as $336, or will I get the "new booking" price of $277?
Has anyone else tried this? I'm just trying to get the most remainder Future Flight Credit as possible.