Originally Posted by
Flyer737
I know all that, but I don't see why anybody would want to do this unless they could not find an appropriately priced flight to book way into the future for the initial redemption. I booked my two 90k redemptions a few days before the early cutoff and used flights nearly 330 days into the future. Now they are just sitting there waiting to be rescheduled when I need the credits.
Yes, one should find bookings that as far out in the future as possible. But prices do not always work that way. I had one in Jan 2010 but the price dropped $70 just between the time I re-checked, and the time I finally talked to an agent (about 40min), on Monday. So I had to resort to something in May.
Credit available INSTANTLY when you cancel. There is no wait time. So there is really NO NEED to cancel the ticket way ahead of your departure date.
If your flights are booked far away - you can literally let them sit there and then periodically monitor if there are flight schedule changes that are meaningful, then you can use that as excuse to get airline cancel your flight with change fee WAIVED. However, if you cancel it soon after you booked, despite there is no need to, you squander the opportunity of cancellation with fee waived.
I understand people get nerveous on their ticket value, despite me being repeating like a parrot here. Once it is ticketed, it is between you and the airline. In fact, the TYP agent warned me on Monday before she finalised the tkt - about no refund, and any changes would be between me and UA.
