cvarming

Hi fellow FTers,

I have this annoying voucher (S*PMO/WEBDOLLAR) from United that happens to be very restricted. It turns out I have a trip for work coming up and I could apply my voucher. I would like to know how this would affect my receipt from United as I would like to be reimbursed of the original ticket price.

gomike

Very restricted? I disagree. Your ereciept will show the price AFTER the voucher has been taken off.

emcampbe

Exactly. When you book the flight, you're receipt will show the price you paid minus the voucher amount - so if the flight was $500 and voucher was $150, you're receipt would show price paid of $350. However, believe it will also show that ecert # XXX (whatever the number is) was applied, if that's what you used. At least, on my last itin when I did that, it showed up on the itin and receipt email i requested on the phone. But not sure if that works with vouchers or just ecerts, and what you have.

In case of changes/cancellations, you don't typically get the value of the voucher/ereceipt back, either. So, if you need to change your flight to the next day, for example, and the flight cost is the same (say $500 from my example above), you'll only show a fare paid of $350, and the change will incur any change fees (say, the typical $150 change fee for domestic itin on a nonrefundable fare) and a $150 fare difference. Cancellations will have $150 deducted from the $350 fare, leaving you tieh $200 in credit from the ticket. I'm sure there have been some people who have been successful in having a new voucher/ecert issue, though that seems to be the exception and not the rule.

RobH

I've got an interesting scenario:
- I haven't been flying lately, I've been traveling to my current assignment by car.
- I've got a $500 voucher on UA with about six months until expiration.
- I expect to start flying again in about a month.
- My old employer forced me to use a travel agency for airline bookings, however my new one does not. So I *could* apply this voucher for a work-related trip and turn it into cash.
- My employer bills the customer for the airfare, they'll see it, including the fact that I used the voucher.

This begs the question *should* I use it this way, or just wait until I've got a personal trip (or perhaps one for a family member). I don't think it is an ethical problem, but it still may raise some eyebrows and is likely to cause me at least some grief. Has anybody done this and if so, what was the upshot?

1KHI

That's really up to you. I tried your trick once and was not refunded the value of the voucher by my fiscal officer. The lesson for me was to use vouchers only on personal travel. Some issue with gift cards, on AA you could get them at 10% off, fiscal didn't like it.