Strange thing happened yesterday. My father-in-law had his itinerary completely messed up by his corporate travel. He was supposed to go to Boston 5/31 and come back on 6/4, but they accidentally booked him for 5/27 returning 5/28. So when he was trying to check-in online yesterday, he realized he had no itinerary, I looked into it, told him what happened, and called UA on his behalf to help straighten things out. I asked agent if his no-show ticket had value, and she apparently said it could've been done couple of different ways. If that ticket was shown as exchange to another non-refundable ticket, the value that would remain was quite low - but she said if the processed it as an exchange for a refundable fare, there was no $150 change fee, and as a result, the extra fare amount he'd have to pay was quite a bit less.

So, I just wanted to verify if this was indeed true, and if UA will allow you to apply credit from a non-refundable fare to a refundable fare without incurring $150 change fee.