Questions and Answers

Since United doesn’t handle changes/cancellations for bookings made through Amex, I called Amex to change dates for a four-ticket reservation on a OW LGA-DEN United flight. While the change fees are waived under the coronavirus policy, Amex quoted me a fare difference of $110 per ticket for the new date. But that [I]exact[/I] flight is available on United’s site at the same cost as my original tickets.

I ended up cancelling the Amex booking (for a credit) and then buying the new tickets directly from United. Keeping the credit with Amex and booking the new tickets only cost $30 more than if I had paid Amex’s fare difference.

I definitely won’t be buying a domestic ticket through the Amex travel center again. Anyone else experience this?

I’m assuming you compared rates before booking thorough AmEx so I think it’s misleading to assume that travel agencies are always more expensive. This may not even be something that AmEx can control. Airlines open different fare buckets to different channels at different times and it’s not unusual to find the cheapest fares directly with them. This seems like the best possible outcome, just book with United and then use you credit when it makes sense to do so.

I got an email from Amex today (that I seem to have misplaced) saying you can now cancel United & Delta tickets booked via Amex directly on the airline websites.

[QUOTE=”MidSouth Skier, post: 69080, member: 184″]I got an email from Amex today (that I seem to have misplaced) saying you can now cancel United & Delta tickets booked via Amex directly on the airline websites.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I just got that too. A day too late 😉 Delta had been allowing Amex-booked changes from the start. As of a few days ago, United wasn’t touching third-party bookings.

Update: I heard from someone else experiencing the same jump in fare difference, [I]but[/I] through United’s own site. It seems that United has two tiers of ticket pricing; one for cash purchases, and a much higher one when you’re paying with a cancellation credit offered under their COVID 19 policy.

So, I was wrong to blame this on Amex.