Originally Posted by
lskohn
Nope, at least in my experience. I had a high-value voucher, booked before expiration date, and had to change it ... and was warned I still had to use it before the expiration date. They did not "reissue" the voucher - it was tied to the original ticket number, so the expiration date stuck.
I do this tons, and it works fine to the customer's advantage, so let me try to explain.
Suppose you had a $1,000 Type B residual value voucher expiring 31 December 2009. What you want to do in late December 2009 is to look for the cheapest United ticket you can find -- it doesn't matter from what airport or to what airport or what the change fee is, or if the ticket is for a far-off date or for tomorrow, because you intend to throw it away completely unused. United will usually have some route somewhere in the country on which it is competing with Southwest or other LCC offering a very low competitive fare, such that you can buy a United one-way ticket whose total cost is much less than the $150 change fee that is typical for United's non-refundable fares. Use your $1,000 voucher to buy that ticket. Suppose that ticket costs $50 all-inclusive. United will then issue you a new $950 Type B residual value voucher ($1,000 minus $50 = $950). That new Type B voucher will have a new number (that's the number starting with 016, the same prefix as for United tickets), and it will have a new issue date, and it will expire 1 year from the issue date. Voila, you've extended the life of your funds approx. 1 year for the price of that ticket, $50.
What you
DON'T want to do is to use that $1,000 voucher to buy a $1,000 ticket (or a ticket >$1,000, with you paying the difference at the time of ticketing), because then the same expiration date will apply to the residual value if you cancel that new ticket, and you'll have to pay the $150 change fee to boot.