United Airlines Now Waiving Award Redeposit Fees

By: Ben Schlappig

Published: March 30, 2020

21 comments

Airlines have been all over the place when it comes to their policies for changing and cancelling tickets. For some airlines, finding a way to avoid ticket refunds has become a necessity in order to not run out of money.

Among US airlines, United Airlines has been the worst when it comes to their methods for actively trying to avoid refunds. We’ve seen them change their policies several times, but overall they’ve been extremely customer unfriendly, in my opinion.

Well, there’s at least one bright spot with United right now, as noted by @Haplo859 — United MileagePlus is now willing to redeposit the miles for award tickets in those situations where flights have been cancelled. This applies whether travel is on United Airlines, or one of their partner airlines.

@OneMileataTime @garyleff @DansDeals As of yesterday UA is waiving redeposit fee on award cancellations (previously they only allowed free changes but not free cancellations/redeposit). Dunno if this applies to all awards – My awards were booked on 3/7 for travel in May.

— Haplo859 (@Haplo859) March 28, 2020

This seems to be a recent change, and it’s kind of unbelievable that this hasn’t been happening all along. You’d think you’d get your miles back in situations where your flight has been cancelled, but instead United has only been willing to waive change fees, rather than redeposit fees, on awards.

This change in policy isn’t officially published, but there have now been many data points of people being able to have miles redeposited for MileagePlus award tickets in situations where flights were cancelled. If you’ve had issues with this policy, maybe give it another try.

Interestingly American AAdvantage and Delta SkyMiles have been pretty good about allowing award redeposits all along. For that matter, in general American and Delta have been better than United when it comes to refunds.

What has your experience been like with trying to cancel award tickets in light of the current situation?

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Rich Guest

April 22, 2020, 4:54 pm

I don't trust United, when I hear and read the stories here and other places seems to be a crap shoot with some paying redeposit fees and others having them waived. How can United get away with robbing fliers. If they cancel, why should anyone be charged.

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sjcw2020 Guest

April 4, 2020, 1:20 pm

Have 2 sets of award flights booked for May: ORD - SFO - ORD (75K miles + taxes/fees) = all miles and taxes/fees were refunded with no redeposit fees; was able to process this easily on the website on 4/1/20. Second set of flights for May throughout Japan: SFO - ICN - KIX - HIJ - HND - NGO - ICN - SFO (420K miles + taxes/fees) = website shows I can get a refund of all taxes/fees but the award redeposit is 0 miles?!! All tickets are "016" issued by United... I've been saving miles for years to take this trip as a graduation present for our son. I'm a platinum status traveler and I've been very happy with United. I know they're hurting but I really hope I can get my miles back on this ticket!!

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PM1 Platinum

March 31, 2020, 8:21 am

I was charged redeposit fees when I cancelled an award trip 2 weeks ago (I am a Platinum with United), which seemed to be a little petty (the fees are only $50 per ticket). But I was able to message them on Twitter yesterday and get a voucher for the amount. I didn't press for a refund as I know they are in a world of hurt and I'll be travelling on United sometime in the next year.

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K.M. Guest

March 30, 2020, 9:42 pm

Hey Vince, I also am flying domestic in Japan in April (one flight is with IBEX airlines, one flight is with ana wings, but both were booked through united's website) that I paid 10,000 miles/$0 taxes for total. These flights were not cancelled by either of the Japanese airlines. I cancelled my flight online through united and I did not get the miles redeposited (been about 3 hours so far). Did you get any kind of error message when cancelling? I received the error "Your refund requires special attention. Please contact the Electronic Support Desk at 1-800-300-1547 for assistance." even though the flight was successfully cancelled. These flights aren't until mid-April so I won't be calling just yet but my wife has a separate itinerary for domestic Japan flights so I want to make sure I do things correctly for her.

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Sonia Lopez Guest

March 30, 2020, 9:18 pm

All United flights to Paris were cancelled, yet my app still reflected my flights and seat assignments, along with a notice that I qualified for a flight waiver. Just called United and agent redeposited my points and refunded my taxes on flights from ORD-CDG, and back, for late April, early May. Also redeposited my husband's points without charging a redeposit fee. Waited 2-3 minutes for an agent. Inspired to call after reading this post, thanks Lucky!!

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