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General award ticket change/cancellation/redeposit/fees questions [2015-2016]

Old Jan 16, 2015, 9:21 pm
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Last edit by: WineCountryUA
Fees for a change or redeposit :

  • There are fees for some changes and redeposit , so please check the chart below for details. These fees apply to MileagePlus awards on United, United Express, Star Alliance airline partners and other airline partners.
  • When requesting a change for more than one ticket, the fee applies to each ticket separately. If two people are traveling together and make a change, for example, there will be a fee for both.
  • When flying with one of our Star Alliance partners, changes must be made at least 24 hours before departure. {but some have managed without less -- somewhat YMMV -- but the rules state 24 hours}
  • Fees are based on the status of the mileage account holder at time of request

UA's Award ticketing options/service fees

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General award ticket change/cancellation/redeposit/fees questions [2015-2016]

Old May 27, 2015, 3:25 am
  #121  
 
Join Date: May 2004
Programs: UA 1K 2MM, BA Gold, SQ TPP
Posts: 1,486
Cancel award mid-itinerary (and get miles back)

Is this possible ?
c1mth0g is offline  
Old May 27, 2015, 5:35 am
  #122  
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As a general rule (and per the published T&Cs of award tickets) no.

But without a few more details it is hard to know exactly how much you are planning to change or cancel and what you'd be looking to get back. I've made changes en route and had awards repriced in my favor a few times, for example.
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Old May 27, 2015, 9:44 am
  #123  
 
Join Date: May 2004
Programs: UA 1K 2MM, BA Gold, SQ TPP
Posts: 1,486
Eg if I book a round trip and fly only one way, or I change the region of the return, do they reprice and give me miles back if it is in my favor?
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Old May 27, 2015, 9:53 am
  #124  
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This is why I book my awards as two one way awards. In general on most awards there is no incentive to booking a roundtrip
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Old May 27, 2015, 11:48 am
  #125  
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Originally Posted by c1mth0g
Eg if I book a round trip and fly only one way, or I change the region of the return, do they reprice and give me miles back if it is in my favor?
I've done this and been successful, though not without a bit of work. It is much less likely to be successful after you start the return, including taking advantage of any stopover you may have built in to the itinerary.

ETA: Taking a r/t award and converting it to a o/w trip and getting a refund is, officially, against the rules. I would not expect success with that. Changing the future segments should be less of an issue.

Last edited by sbm12; May 27, 2015 at 11:58 am
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Old May 27, 2015, 12:21 pm
  #126  
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 518
I have changed the return leg of a US-EU rt award after flying the outbound leg to an EU-EU leg in the future, and got back the mileage difference. The new EU-EU leg had to be wasted but that was only 12.5k miles.
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Old May 27, 2015, 12:37 pm
  #127  
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Originally Posted by prncess674
This is why I book my awards as two one way awards. In general on most awards there is no incentive to booking a roundtrip
The problem with this strategy is that if you need to cancel, you would pay two cancel/redeposit fees if you're not elite enough.
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Old May 27, 2015, 12:57 pm
  #128  
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Originally Posted by prncess674
This is why I book my awards as two one way awards. In general on most awards there is no incentive to booking a roundtrip
1. No stopover allowed on one way award.
2. Double the change and/or redeposit fees if your plans change.
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Old May 27, 2015, 5:26 pm
  #129  
 
Join Date: May 2004
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Originally Posted by prncess674
This is why I book my awards as two one way awards. In general on most awards there is no incentive to booking a roundtrip
Main reason I'm asking is because the trip I plan to book has a stopover, so I need to book it as a round trip, and I'm wondering what happens if my plans change.
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Old May 27, 2015, 8:36 pm
  #130  
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Originally Posted by c1mth0g
Eg if I book a round trip and fly only one way, or I change the region of the return, do they reprice and give me miles back if it is in my favor?
Originally Posted by c1mth0g
Main reason I'm asking is because the trip I plan to book has a stopover, so I need to book it as a round trip, and I'm wondering what happens if my plans change.
Once the stopover has been used there is no hope of a refund since there is no legal OW with a stopover.

There repricing of a RT due to change might be work but usually the price of the RT is is based on origin and destination, so once at the destination changes are not likely to lead to a price decrease.
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Old May 28, 2015, 1:24 am
  #131  
 
Join Date: May 2004
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Originally Posted by WineCountryUA
Once the stopover has been used there is no hope of a refund since there is no legal OW with a stopover.

There repricing of a RT due to change might be work but usually the price of the RT is is based on origin and destination, so once at the destination changes are not likely to lead to a price decrease.
Sorry if I wasn't clear. The stopover would be on the return segment and there's a chance I might want to change or cancel the final section from the stopover point to the final destination. This would result in an itinerary that requires fewer miles and the question is if they would refund the difference in that case.
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Old May 28, 2015, 2:23 am
  #132  
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Originally Posted by c1mth0g
Sorry if I wasn't clear. The stopover would be on the return segment and there's a chance I might want to change or cancel the final section from the stopover point to the final destination. This would result in an itinerary that requires fewer miles and the question is if they would refund the difference in that case.
That would not result in an itinerary that requires fewer miles. It would be a roundtrip without a stopover. No refund.
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Old May 28, 2015, 3:55 am
  #133  
 
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Originally Posted by Kacee
That would not result in an itinerary that requires fewer miles. It would be a roundtrip without a stopover. No refund.
Stopover and final destination are in different regions.
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Old Jun 2, 2015, 1:20 pm
  #134  
 
Join Date: Aug 2014
Posts: 102
I have a United award flight to Japan in October that I need to cancel and nothing big that I want to book within a year, though I will be traveling to Europe next October and could use them then. Unfortunately, that would be too far out to be of use because the schedule won't be published when my soon-to-be-cancelled flights are supposed to be taken.

I was debating whether it's worth changing to a one-way ticket LAX-MCO (and saving $100 in fees vs. cancelling) for this April that I'm not 100% sure I'll need. Problem is, if I can't get the time off from work then, I'll just have to cancel that and end up paying the $200 fee, for a total of $300 including the original change fee.

As I was debating and Googling, I came across this blog post from 2012: http://www.milevalue.com/save-100-or...-united-award/

Does anyone know if the "trick" written about there - i.e., changing your award to an inter-island Hawaii flight priced at 5000 miles to receive the rest of the miles back - still works and how risky it is? I would not be flying the Hawaii flight.
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Old Jun 10, 2015, 9:17 pm
  #135  
 
Join Date: Apr 2012
Posts: 6
Got Laid Off, Can I get miles back?

Hi, So I've planned award travels to Istanbul using my united miles for myself and a companion.

Yesterday, my company announced restructuring and I got laid off.
I may need to cancel the trip, and so can I get my miles back without any penalty fee??

thanks.
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