Airline ticket flexibility is incredibly valuable, and in recent years we’ve largely seen airlines adjust their policies to make them more flexible. Even so, one huge advantage of booking an airline award ticket rather than paying cash is the flexibility that you get.
Why? Generally you can redeposit the miles for an airline award ticket for a very small fee, or with many programs, for free. Even when revenue tickets have flexibility, typically that comes in the form of a credit you can use toward a future ticket, normally with an expiration date.
In this post, I’d like to compare airline award ticket change & redeposit policies, because this is an area where we’ve seen lots of improvement in recent years.
In this post:
Comparing airline award ticket change & redeposit rules
How do airline award ticket change & redeposit rules compare between airlines? Let’s compare the policies of some major frequent flyer programs. Below I’ll provide a consolidated list, and then we’ll discuss the policies in more detail below, since in some cases there’s some nuance and/or exceptions. Here are the policies of some popular programs (costs are all per person):
- Air Canada Aeroplan charges up to 100 CAD for changes, and up to 150 CAD for cancellations
- Air France-KLM Flying Blue charges €70 for changes, and €70 for cancellations
- Alaska Mileage Plan charges nothing for changes, and nothing for cancellations
- All Nippon Airways Mileage Club charges nothing for changes, and 3,000 miles for cancellations
- American AAdvantage charges nothing for changes, and nothing for cancellations
- Avianca Lifemiles charges $150 for changes, and $50-200 for cancellations
- British Airways Club charges $55 for changes, and $55 for cancellations
- Cathay Pacific Asia Miles charges $50 for changes, and $120 for cancellations
- Delta SkyMiles charges nothing for changes, and nothing for cancellations
- Emirates Skywards charges $25 for changes, and $75 for cancellations
- Etihad Guest charges up to 400 AED for changes, and up to 75% of miles for cancellations
- EVA Air Infinity MileageLands charges $50 for changes, and $50 for cancellations
- Finnair Plus charges €50 for changes, and €50 for cancellations
- Iberia Club charges €25 for changes, and €25 for cancellations
- JetBlue TrueBlue charges nothing for changes, and nothing for cancellations
- Qantas Frequent Flyer charges 5,000 points for changes, and 6,000 points for cancellations
- Qatar Privilege Club charges $25-100 for changes, and $25-100 for cancellations
- Singapore KrisFlyer charges $0-50 for changes, and $50-75 for cancellations
- Southwest Rapid Rewards charges nothing for changes, and nothing for cancellations
- Turkish Miles&Smiles charges $70 for changes, and $70 for cancellations
- United MileagePlus charges nothing for changes, and nothing for cancellations
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club charges $100 for changes, and $100 for cancellations
A few important things to note:
- You should be concerned with the policy of the program that you booking your ticket with, rather than the airline you’re actually flying with (in situations where you book a partner award)
- A change fee refers to situations where you’re trying to change the date or time of your flight, while a redeposit refers to a situation where you’re trying to just have the miles put back in your account after canceling a ticket
- I won’t be covering all frequent flyer programs (after all, there are hundreds), but rather, will focus on programs that are either really popular due to redemption options, and/or programs partnering with major transferable points currencies
- For awards to & from the United States, you can generally expect that you can cancel them for free within 24 hours of booking, which provides flexibility for changes you need to make shortly after booking
- In some cases, higher tier elite members receive waived fees on awards, so you’ll want to consult the member benefits terms to see if that applies in your situation
With that out of the way, let’s look at the policies of each program in more detail. I’ll also list the deadlines by which you need to cancel or change an award ticket.
Air Canada Aeroplan
While Air Canada Aeroplan is one of my favorite frequent flyer programs, it doesn’t have a particularly generous or simple policy when it comes to ticket changes and redeposits. As a general rule of thumb, you can expect that a ticket change on a standard award will cost you 100 CAD, while a ticket redeposit on a standard award will cost you 150 CAD.
Fees are potentially lower if you’re booking a higher priced award, and you can also expect to pay more to refund a ticket through the call center (though there’s no reason to do that, since you can easily redeposit awards on aircanada.com). Also note that fees are per direction of travel, so you’ll pay even more if you’re traveling roundtrip on one itinerary.
For Aeroplan, you must change or cancel your award ticket at least two hours before departure, or the ticket will be forfeited. Aeroplan Super Elite members don’t pay change or cancellation fees on award tickets.
Air France-KLM Flying Blue
Air France-KLM Flying Blue has access to a lot more Air France and KLM award space than other programs, so it’s quite valuable. The program charges €70 to either change or redeposit an award ticket, so the cost is the same regardless of what you need to do with your award ticket.
For Flying Blue, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to the check-in deadline for your flight, or the ticket will be forfeited. Flying Blue Platinum members don’t pay change or cancellation fees on award tickets.
Alaska Mileage Plan
Alaska Mileage Plan doesn’t have change or redeposit fees on award tickets, making it a solid program for locking in an award, especially given all the great uses of Mileage Plan miles. The only thing to note is that Alaska charges a $12.50 partner award booking fee per direction of travel, and that’s non-refundable if you cancel.
For Mileage Plan, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to the scheduled departure time of your flight, or the ticket will be forfeited.
All Nippon Airways Mileage Club
All Nippon Airways (ANA) Mileage Club has some great Star Alliance redemption values, though the program can be pretty complicated. ANA allows free changes to the date and time of award ticket flights, but those changes must be made at least 96 hours before departure.
As far as redepositing award tickets goes, Mileage Club charges miles rather than money for that. Specifically, you can expect to pay 3,000 miles per ticket. You’ll then have your award taxes and fees refunded as well.
For Mileage Club, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to the scheduled departure time of your flight, or the ticket will be forfeited. Mileage Club Diamond members don’t pay change or cancellation fees on award tickets.
American AAdvantage
American AAdvantage doesn’t have change or redeposit fees on award tickets. So this is a great program for locking in speculative awards, especially given all the great partner awards that can be booked with AAdvantage miles.
For AAdvantage, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to the scheduled departure time of your flight, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Avianca Lifemiles
Avianca Lifemiles is a popular program for Star Alliance first & business class awards. Making a change to a Lifemiles award ticket will cost you $150, regardless of what the change is. Redepositing your ticket, meanwhile, will cost you $50-200. You can expect to pay around $50 for a short haul economy award ticket, while you can expect to pay $200 for a long haul first or business class ticket.
For Lifemiles, you can change or cancel your award ticket either 24 or more hours prior to departure, or 24 or more hours after scheduled departure, so that’s quite flexible. For whatever reason, you just can’t change or cancel your ticket in the 24 hours before or after scheduled departure.
Note that you can have change and cancellation fees waived if you register for the program’s subscription service, which comes with a monthly fee.
British Airways Club
British Airways Club offers lots of great partner award redemption options. You can expect that making a change to an award ticket or redepositing the Avios for an award ticket will cost you $55 if done online, with an extra $25 fee for doing so via the call center.
Note that the fee varies based on where in the world you are. For example, at the moment you can expect to pay €42.50 in the European Union, or £35 in the United Kingdom.
There is one interesting quirk to canceling Avios awards, which is that you don’t have to necessarily pay the full cancellation fee to redeposit an award ticket booked with Avios. You either have to forfeit the taxes & fees or pay the fee to get your Avios refunded.
In other words, if you booked an award within the United States on American, you’d generally only pay $5.60 in taxes & fees. So rather than paying $55, you could just forfeit $5.60, and get your Avios back.
With the program, you must change or cancel your award ticket at least 24 hours before departure, or the ticket will be forfeited. British Airways Club Gold members don’t pay change or cancellation fees on award tickets.
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
While Cathay Pacific Asia Miles isn’t my favorite program on earth, it does offer decent redemption rates on Cathay Pacific, and often has access to extra award space. Asia Miles charges $50 or 7,500 Asia Miles for a flight changes, and charges $120 or 17,000 Asia Miles for a flight cancellation. Paying cash is definitely the better deal than redeeming miles, in my opinion.
For Asia Miles, you can actually cancel or change your ticket after scheduled departure, as long as it’s within the ticket validity period. So that’s very nice flexibility to have.
Delta SkyMiles
Delta SkyMiles isn’t the most exciting points currency, but at least it doesn’t have change or redeposit fees on SkyMiles reservations when originating in North America. The only exception is when booking basic economy tickets with SkyMiles, as those don’t offer the same flexibility. Furthermore, unfortunately tickets originating outside of North America are still subjected to a $150 per person change or redeposit fee, though that’s not consistently enforced.
For SkyMiles, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to the scheduled departure time of your flight, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Emirates Skywards
Emirates Skywards is the best program for booking Emirates first class awards, assuming you have elite status. The carrier’s fee structure can be a bit complicated for awards, depending on the type of award you booked. Skywards charges up to $25 to change the date of an award flight, though there’s no cost to change Flex Plus awards. Meanwhile Skywards charges up to $75 to redeposit an award, though there’s no cost to redeposit Flex Plus awards.
For Skywards, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to the scheduled departure time of your flight, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Etihad Guest
Etihad Guest has the world’s most punitive award change and cancellation policies. You can’t cancel awards within 24 hours of departure, and further out than that, the cost varies based on how far out you’re canceling. This policy is actually super complicated to understand.
When it comes to cancelling Etihad Guest award tickets, you’ll potentially be charged a percentage of the fare paid (for award tickets, in miles), factoring in how far in advance you cancel:
- Cancellations more than 21 days out are free on Deluxe bookings, and incur a 25% fee on Comfort and Value bookings
- Cancellations between eight and 21 days of departure incur a 25% fee on Deluxe bookings, and a 50% fee on Comfort and Value bookings
- Cancellations between one and seven days of departure incur a 50% fee on Deluxe bookings, and a 75% fee on Comfort and Value bookings
- Cancellations within 24 hours of departure incur a 75% fee on Deluxe bookings, and aren’t possible on Comfort and Value bookings
When it comes to changing Etihad Guest award tickets, you’ll be charged a fixed amount, factoring in how far in advance you make the change:
- Changes more than 21 days out are free on Deluxe bookings, and incur an AED 100 fee on Comfort and Value bookings
- Changes between eight and 21 days of departure incur an AED 100 fee on Deluxe bookings, and an AED 200 fee on Comfort and Value bookings
- Cancellations between one and seven days of departure incur an AED 400 fee on Deluxe bookings, and aren’t possible on Comfort and Value bookings
- Cancellations within 24 hours of departure aren’t possible on any kind of booking
The moral of the story should be to just avoid the Etihad Guest program, because there’s no other program that has a policy even half this punitive.
EVA Air Infinity MileageLands
Infinity MileageLands is a useful program because it has more access to EVA Air business class award space than other programs. Infinity MileageLands charges $50 to change or cancel an award ticket.
For Infinity MileageLands, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to the scheduled departure time of your flight, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Finnair Plus
Finnair Plus offers decent redemption rates on Finnair, and is also part of the overall Avios ecosystem. You can expect that making a change to an award ticket or redepositing the Avios for an award ticket will cost you €50.
For Finnair Plus, you must change or cancel your award ticket at least 24 hours before departure, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Iberia Club
Iberia Club has some great sweet spot redemptions for travel on Iberia. The program charges €25 to change or cancel an award for travel on Iberia. However, note that you have to do so at least 24 hours before departure, or else you’ll forfeit your ticket.
Furthermore, oddly partner award tickets can’t be changed or canceled, so I’d highly recommend not making such bookings through Iberia Club. Instead, transfer your rewards to another “flavor” of Avios, where you can get more flexible terms, not to mention better value.
JetBlue TrueBlue
JetBlue TrueBlue doesn’t have change or redeposit fees on TrueBlue reservations. However, the taxes & fees won’t be refunded to your original form of payment, but rather, will be added to your JetBlue Travel Bank, and can be used toward a future flight. The only JetBlue awards that aren’t refundable are Blue Basic tickets with TrueBlue points, which are subjected to a $100-200 redeposit fee in the event you need to cancel.
For TrueBlue, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to the scheduled departure time of your flight, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Qantas Frequent Flyer
Qantas Frequent Flyer charges for award changes and redeposits with points. Changing your Qantas Frequent Flyer award ticket will cost you 5,000 points per passenger, while redepositing your Qantas Frequent Flyer award ticket will cost you 6,000 points per passenger.
For Frequent Flyer, you must change or cancel your award ticket at least 24 hours before departure, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Qatar Privilege Club
Qatar Airways Privilege Club has solid redemption rates for travel on Qatar Airways, and also has attractive partner award pricing.
The program charges $25 for changes or cancellations made more than 24 hours before departure, and $100 for changes or cancellations made between three and 24 hours of departure.
Privilege Club doesn’t allow changes or cancellations within three hours of departure, so you’ll forfeit all your Avios, and will just get back any taxes and government fees that you paid.
Singapore KrisFlyer
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer is the best program for booking premium cabin Singapore Airlines awards. The program’s fees differ depending on whether you’re booking a Saver or Advantage award (with the former being the lowest priced award):
- Changing a Saver award ticket costs $25-50, changing an Advantage award ticket costs $0-25
- Redepositing a Saver award ticket costs $75, redepositing an Advantage award ticket costs $50
For KrisFlyer, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to scheduled departure time, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Southwest Rapid Rewards
Southwest Rapid Rewards doesn’t have any change or redeposit fees on award tickets. This was the first major program to have such a policy, and the airline continues to take a very customer-friendly approach with this.
For Rapid Rewards, you must change or cancel your award ticket at least 10 minutes prior to scheduled departure, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Turkish Miles&Smiles
Turkish Miles&Smiles has some valuable sweet spot redemptions, including both for travel on Turkish Airlines, and for travel on partner airlines. The program charges $70 to either change or redeposit an award ticket, so the cost is the same regardless of what you need to do with your award ticket.
For Miles&Smiles, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to scheduled departure time, or the ticket will be forfeited.
United MileagePlus
United MileagePlus doesn’t have any change or redeposit fees on award tickets. So this is a great program for locking in speculative Star Alliance awards.
For MileagePlus, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to the scheduled departure time of your flight, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club has the following charges for award changes and redeposits:
- Changing an award costs £70 in the UK, or $100 in the United States (or an equivalent amount in another currency)
- Redepositing an award costs £70 in the UK, or $100 in the United States (or an equivalent amount in another currency)
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club requires you to cancel award tickets at least 24 hours before departure, or else you forfeit your points. Flying Club Gold members don’t pay change or cancellation fees on award tickets.
Bottom line
Airline award tickets can not only unlock amazing first & business class seats for huge discounts, but also offer significant advantages when it comes to changing or canceling tickets. Nowadays many frequent flyer programs don’t even have change or redeposit fees for awards, which is awesome.
I tend to think that these policies are worth keeping in mind when planning travel, especially if it’s speculative in nature. Based on my own redemption patterns, I’m particularly happy about the policies of Alaska Mileage Plan and American AAdvantage.
If OMAAT readers have any award ticket change or redeposit experiences to share, please do so in the comments section!
Virgin Atlantic also cap cancellation fee at the cash payment portion. I had cancelled a domestic ticket and got all my points back without making any payment.
Many thanks for this great list. I have a plea for Delta. For their award tickets originating outside the US, they mark even business fares as “non-refundable”. This is extremely misleading, particular for occasional users of Delta and Skymiles. I have been assured on Delta flyer sites that that this just means there may be a fee of $150 to redeposit the miles. Why then cannot Delta describe these fares as “refundable for a fee”...
Many thanks for this great list. I have a plea for Delta. For their award tickets originating outside the US, they mark even business fares as “non-refundable”. This is extremely misleading, particular for occasional users of Delta and Skymiles. I have been assured on Delta flyer sites that that this just means there may be a fee of $150 to redeposit the miles. Why then cannot Delta describe these fares as “refundable for a fee” or similar. Simply calling them “nonrefundable” (with no footnote of further explanation) is hardly helpful or accurate. It’s intimidating to book a fare described as “non-refundable” and has deterred me from using my Delta points to book a business ticket in the past (from Asia to Europe in my case). I find the policies of other airlines seem to be much more clearly explained… Thanks
I recently cancelled SAS award tickets through VS. I was surprised to find there was no fee for the cancellation. VS doesn't apply change/cancellation fees to tickets with taxes/fees under $50, you just lose the taxes. In this case, I lost $5/ticket to cancel. Nice
I canceled a Virgin Atlantic award booking seven days ago and still haven't received the refund. I didn't even receive a confirmation email about the cancelation, just some vague empty promises by agents that an email is "on its way" (email must have gotten stuck in Timbuktu)
Any advise or suggestions of what to do to expedite the process or in case the refund never comes? Thank you
My VA refund took a couple of weeks. It likely will come but they are the slowest to post IMHO.
If I’m reading it correctly, EVA’s award cancellation fees are $0 if done online and $50 only for other channels of cancellation. https://www.threads.com/@ikkwei/post/DMX1osXhPqj?xmt=AQF0QYwfNm33y0RUZ_k_KKVuX_cn0_So9KVOpfbd1W-thQ
AFAIK the AV Lifemiles+ subscription still includes a $25 nonrefundable partner booking fee
For BA, regarding this
"There is one interesting quirk to canceling Avios awards, which is that you don’t have to necessarily pay the full cancellation fee to redeposit an award ticket booked with Avios. You either have to forfeit the taxes & fees or pay the fee to get your Avios refunded."
I think it's worth an explanation: sometimes (typically for BA redemptions within Europe), you have multiple pricing options (more cash, less Avios...
For BA, regarding this
"There is one interesting quirk to canceling Avios awards, which is that you don’t have to necessarily pay the full cancellation fee to redeposit an award ticket booked with Avios. You either have to forfeit the taxes & fees or pay the fee to get your Avios refunded."
I think it's worth an explanation: sometimes (typically for BA redemptions within Europe), you have multiple pricing options (more cash, less Avios or vice versa), e.g.:
- 15000 Avios + €1
- 4750 Avios + €23
- 2000 Avios + €80
The cancellation fee would be the lowest of the cash part and €45 (or £35 or $55 depending on where your account is registered). In other words, by selecting the 15000 Avios option the cancellation fee is only €1.
A few other things to note about AV
-The tax is almost 100% of the time $25 more than what it displays , and Lifemiles doesn’t show the *A fee
-Cancellation/exchanges can ONLY be called in, and AV’s CS is sub bar…
-You have 1 calendar year to cancel/exchange a flight from the date it was booked
This is slightly off topic, but does anyone else recognize the ridiculous amount of “fake availability” shown on AS?! Any INTL flight that’s a one-stop is most likely not bookable, it’s RIDICULOUS .EVEN THEIR AGENTS IVE SPOKEN TO OTP RECOGNIZE IT.
Clear example of an outdated system, should be a SIMPLE fix, even if there are ways around it :)
UA has the same issue booking LX, always not available at the end…
I changed a VS award for an Aeromexico flight about 2 weeks ago and they charged me $50.
For Air France/KLM (Flying Blue), you cannot, in practice, change/modify a ticket. The reservation needs to be cancelled altogether, and you need to book your new flight. If you booked a round trip and want to change only one leg, there is a big risk that after the cancellation, the leg you wanted to keep (and need to re-book) is no longer available (with miles) or its price has changed drastically.
This is why it...
For Air France/KLM (Flying Blue), you cannot, in practice, change/modify a ticket. The reservation needs to be cancelled altogether, and you need to book your new flight. If you booked a round trip and want to change only one leg, there is a big risk that after the cancellation, the leg you wanted to keep (and need to re-book) is no longer available (with miles) or its price has changed drastically.
This is why it is advised, with Flying Blue, to book each leg separately under two separate bookings. The drawback with that trick is that, should you need to cancel your trip, you will need to pay 70€ x2 = 140€ (waived if you are FB Platinum).
Not correct - I booked 2 business class tickets to Europe for my wife and myseld (VA to LHR then AF from CDG back). Unfortunately my wife died before the trip. Both VA and AF worked with me (and I didn't tell them she died simply that she would not be able to make the trip but I planned to still go). In both cases they split the ticket into 2 separate record locators, cancelled...
Not correct - I booked 2 business class tickets to Europe for my wife and myseld (VA to LHR then AF from CDG back). Unfortunately my wife died before the trip. Both VA and AF worked with me (and I didn't tell them she died simply that she would not be able to make the trip but I planned to still go). In both cases they split the ticket into 2 separate record locators, cancelled her ticket (while leaving my reservation alone) and redeposited the miles to my account and net fees to the credit card. each charged me $100 US (in line with Lucky's costs in this article). Trust me I didn't cancel and reissue my ticket. In the case of VA I had J for 35,000 miles and rebooking would have been 350.000 while AF was 50,000 each and rebooking was well over 100,000. I am very glad to pay $100 to each airline to modify the reservations and leave the great award tickets I booked in place.
This is one of the best pieces that you write, year after year.