United Frequent Flyer change charge?

[jules54]

I mostly use all my mileage programs to fly to Mexico. I always understood that you could change your flight days and times without charge as long as you did not change your departure and arrival cities.
This week I called United to try to move our Thanksgiving flight to Cabo forward a day out of the same airport already knowing that there was availability. Yes the agent told me there is available seats, but I will have to pay 100.00 per ticket change fee, because the layover city is different. Even though it is the same hub city on our return trip. What's up with that? No they won't waive the fee. Called customer service and they told me they have no way to waive the fee(whatever) they will give me two 100.00 certficiates to use on future United flights that will expire one year from issue date.
Does anyone know if these certs. are worth the paper they are written on? Or are they only good with certain rate classes etc?
Any ideas? I haven't made the change yet so I am waiting for answers.
Thanks

[Spence]

Sounds like they're trying to work with you... you might want to go here and ask.

[philemer]

Any variance in cities brings a $100 fee per person. Not sure what fare class the $100 certs are good for. Call back & ask.

[Denise L]

I didn't know that United implemented a $100 change fee on award seats without a city change. Bummer!

Anyhow, I would imagine that the $100 vouchers are good on any flight for the people named on the voucher(s). Probably similiar to the vouchers they give out when a fare changes (we had 4 x 4 of them last year, worth $600). Ours were good for a year, and we had to use them for our family of 4 only, and they could not be combined for one ticket.

[Icarus]

Ask if they are type A or type B vouchers. Type B vouchers are the better ones. Type B vouchers are the ones you get for giving up your seat on oversold flights (VDB) if you request them instead of the "free continental US ticket" they might offer first. Type Bs can be used to reduce the fare paid on a ticket and can be used on any ticket, and they usually break them up into 4 equal value vouchers, e.g., 4 x $25 for $100, 4 x $150 for $600. You get no "change" from these vouchers, so if you overpay using a voucher, you loose the excess. There's very few restrictions on use of Type B vouchers. These are like gold to UA FFs, since a ticket purchased partially or entirely by Type B vouchers is considered a paid ticket, and earns miles, EQMs and are eligible for upgrades, depending on the fare basis on international tickets, just like any other paid ticket.

Supposedly the Type A customer service vouchers are not as useful as the Type B vouchers. One of the other UA FF's here might know more about how the Type A's work. I don't think I've ever had one, except maybe the almost useless $25 ones a long time ago.

At any rate, offering you $200 in vouchers is a nice gesture.

If you can find availability on the same flights, there should be no change fee.

-David

[philemer]

Originally Posted by deniselew

I didn't know that United implemented a $100 change fee on award seats without a city change. Bummer!

You misread the posts. The UA $100 fee is ONLY charged if you change one of your cities. If the route stays EXACTLY the same then there is no fee. If I have BOI-SFO-OGG reserved and I want to change to BOI-LAX-OGG then I'll pay the fee. If you just change times or dates there is no fee.

[camachinist]

Another advantage to being 1K...no fees of any sort on award travel...

Regarding the OP's inquiry, please post inbound and outbound routing currently booked. Do not change anything as of yet. I hope the CSR didn't notate your PNR.

As mentioned, any changes which result in a ticket re-issue garner the fee. The whole purpose of award travel is that it "should" be free, so you need to be smarter than the CSR, which isn't hard to do these days. The important thing is knowing the O&D/routing, so we can find open buckets on exactly the same routing with the date changes. There are ways of doing that, even if it's not on exactly the same flight numbers. This is why routing is an important consideration when making the initial reservation, if not 1K/GS elite.

BTW, essentially the fee is to re-deposit the miles and re-issue the tickets. I cancelled an award flight earlier earlier this year and paid the same fee to re-deposit the miles. I paid again when changing our Y tix to F tix for our Oz trip. At the time I was a 1P. After forking out 400.00 essentially for nothing, I decided to crunch the numbers for 1K and end that insanity. I feel better now

As a general rule of thumb, if you don't like what you're hearing on the phone, or don't understand it completely, politely end the conversation with "let me work on this some more" or "let me think about this" and "thanks" and then do some homework and call back. IME, the more brief and polite the coversation, the less likely they'll enter notes in your PNR. This allows you to call back later and get a "different" answer

Pat

[jules54]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I do understand the FF rules etc. the exact route was LNK-ORD-SJD outbound Nov. 16 I needed to change to Nov. 15 for LNK-SJD same cities, my problem was no flight through ORD that day the route is through DEN which also is our return route. I can guarantee I made a minimum of 10 phone calls to United Reservation and customer Service out of those call 9 went to India. I finally decided to bite the bullet and pay the change fee per ticket because we wanted to leave the day earlier. I was told by customer service that would absolutely be the only fee nothing addtional like 15.00 per ticket fee as I did my orgininal reservation on the internet. When I called reservation to make the change once more in India the agent told me I had to pay the change fee and 15.00 per ticket as it was 13 days or less until the flight. THAT DID IT, I went over the edge. 70,000 pts for FF account and now 230.00 extra dollars NO WAY. I asked the rep once again where she was located she answered INDIA. I said GOODBYE. I then left the house to go to walk the picket line as I work for Goodyear Tire and Rubber and we are on strike. During my walk I settled down and decided to drive to the airport and get the job done in person. I did and they got everything done for me through their help line which is in Chicago not India, but only agents have access to the line of course. I called United Customer Service the next day and my cert. are on the way. I choose the email vouchers they expire sooner June 2007, but I won't have to deal with speaking to any agents to book travel.
By the way American Airlines does not charge this fee is the departure and arrival cities stay the same.
I could not just cancel the tickets and return the pts and reticket as the space on the return flight would not have been available.

[Icarus]

Originally Posted by jules54

I could not just cancel the tickets and return the pts and reticket as the space on the return flight would not have been available.

They would have charged you the same $100 fee to redeposit the miles. AA does too.

You should write a letter to United about your experiences with India and US customer service. I wouldn't expect anything in return, but it can't hurt. If they had trained these people properly and provided properly trained supervisors this wouldn't be so bad for UA, but they haven't handled it well.

A friend of mine was trying to get in touch with somebody in SFO operations because his wifes laptop was offloaded in San Francisco (long story) and handed to a UA employee. He was trying to get in touch with them to give them instructions on overnighting it back to his wife, at his expense. He kept getting India on the phone and they were no help at all. He finally got through to somebody though. He was pretty frustrated with that experience.

-David