astroflyer

Yep, I recently did this with no problem whatsoever. I think you're most certainly better off not checking in before asking to cancel.

meecal

I booked separate United award flights for BWI->DEN (12.5k miles) and DEN->ASE (10k miles) for a personal trip on 1/22. Now a work trip earlier in the week has popped up. That means I would be out in Los Angeles, so I'd charge my company for a LAX to ASE flight instead of me taking my award flights. My understanding is that if I cancel the award flights, I'll have to pay $400 to restore my miles. That's simply not worth it to me. And work plans can change last minute so I don't want to cancel my award flights far ahead of time.

Here's my concern: That if I no-show for these two flights, United will cancel my flight three days later out of ASE to DEN at the end of the weekend or in some way give me grief. Are there any repercussions such as these if I no-show for the first two flights? Is there any way to get some or all of my mikes back without paying $400? Thank you so much!!

WineCountryUA

cancelling of later flights will only occur when an earlier flight on the same PNR was a no show. Seperate PNRs are independent.

no-show on award flights does not forfeit the miles but you will still need to pay the redeposit fee unless there is a weather waiver issued for the relevant flights/days.

spgbus

When changing an award ticket online, does United cancel all previous segments and rebook it again? I was trying to change a ticket with 3 segments: A, B, C. I only checked segment C online to change. Segment A still has award available but B wasn't. After clicking through the final payment page, the system gave me an error. Called Agent and found out segment B was missing and Agent said I cancelled that segment which I didn't!!! I thought that the change process was to keep existing non-changed segments and only cancel and rebook the checked one but seems like United simply cancelled all segments and re-booked it again. Is this true?

Kacee

Usually it works as it's supposed to, and only the selected segment is changed.

Sometimes the system makes an error which is what happened to you.

When this happens, people here will say "you should always call in those changes rather than trying to make them online." When a phone agent screws up your award itinerary, people will say, "you should have done that online." Sometimes with UA and its systems (both automated and human), you just can't win.

Were you able to get it back? Since this was a UA error, you should politely push to have UA open award space to restore the segment if necessary.

1k-all-the-way

As I 1k I often book and cancel award flights since I don't pay the change fee. Two days ago I tried to cancel and AC award on-line, but at the end of process it said to call an agent. I did and she finished cancelling it for me. I'm now overseas and the miles have not re-posted yet. In my experience, this usually has happened right away. Not in a place where it's easy to call in to MP service....think this got messed up or does it take a few days sometimes? I'm hoping to use the miles soon.

AndyInSaigon

My experience is that they usually are back with in a few hours. If it's been two days I would call MP.

Asiatraveler15

It has taken longer for me with a non UA flight.

UA within a minute for me, but others sometimes several days.

meecal

@:-) So with the possibility of some sort of delay for the flight, either weather or otherwise, is it best to not cancel? I know I won't be taking the flight and I'm not interested in paying $200 to reclaim 12,500 miles, so I'm thinking I just stand by and if there is any delay I call UA and ask them to refund my miles at that point....

That makes you wonder though - why would you ever cancel ahead of time if you're not interested in paying to get the miles back?

lurkgoddess

Aww man; that sucks.

This happened to me except I called in to make a change (I couldn't make any changes online) and after the agent revised my last segment, I lost my award space on ANA. I didn't realize it until I got the confirmation email so I called back to United and they "assured" me that ANA would put me back in; I would just have to wait until Monday to speak to someone with ANA. Eventually, I reached out to ANA who said it was unlikely. I called United back and got an agent (two actually) who called ANA on the line with me but got the same 'Sorry Charlie. It's gone and we ain't giving it back.'

United just pretty much said tough luck. Fortunately, after that last disappointing phone call, I searched for saver on United metal and was able to get placed on that flight. They never even offered this as an alternative, just to keep pushing the issue with ANA.

This does not apply to you but what I should have done was stayed on the line with the agent until my revised itinerary came through my email or refreshed my information on United's page. At least we could have resolved the issue then instead of having me sweat that out for several days.

After that, I was so scared to make any changes that I almost missed out on grabbing first saver on my return trip. Glad I did though.

Anyway, sorry for the ramble. It's just that I feel your pain.

I hope you are able to get it worked out; keep us updated.

cgo111

Hi-

I have an exiting domestic award ticket, routing TPA-IAH-SFO, with a fairly long (5 hour) layover in IAH. Checking online, I see a better connection for the TPA-IAH leg, to reduce the layover time.

I called in to modify the ticket. Agent found availability, but then put me on hold because she was having difficulty. After a period of time, she let me know that although there is availability if I were only traveling TPA-IAH, the availability is not there if attempting to ticket all the way through to SFO. I was confused, because I wasn't trying to change my existing IAH-SFO segment.

Has anyone encountered this issue, where a segment's availability is only valid when traveling that segment only? I can't understand why this restriction would be in place, and I'd love to be able to book this leg, if possible.

Thanks!

spgbus

Fortunately there was still an earlier flight available and agent just booked me on that one yesterday. I checked again this morning, found out my cancelled seats were returned to the system, it is a SAS flight segment, eventually my original seats have been switched back today.

Kacee

Ticketing SAS is often problematic.

Alliecolvin

Question, recently cancelled a leg of an award flight I booked for my daughter with my miles. Was told that I can not redeposit into my account but has to stay with the original name on ticket. Anyone had the same experience? I am Platinum so no fees should apply for redeposit.

WineCountryUA

Bogus answer

BUT once a portion of an award flight has been flown, there are only limited cases in which one can get a refund of the unflown segments. So without knowing more, it is very likely there is no miles to redeposit.