Originally Posted by
goodo
Hi,
I hope someone can answer this for me. My father is very sick in hospital in MEL and last week my brother bought UA tickets for his family of 6 to fly JFK-MEL this Monday (5 Dec). Over the weekend my dad took a turn for the worse and only has a few days left. My brother tried to get UA to allow him to bring the tickets forward by a day to depart on the Sunday to allow him to get here while my dad is still alive and even had a letter from the hospital detailing this but didn't have any luck. He even went out to JFK but had zero success, and eventually was given no option but to purchase entirely new tickets for the whole family in order to leave on the Sunday instead of the Monday. He's flying now, but was wondering are his original tickets $10k down the drain or can they still be used as a credit or something?
Thanks so much for any advice you can give,
goodo
There is no way of telling without precise details. Please carefully read the terms & conditions of the fare bucket in which the original purchase was made. This can be anything from fully refundable, apparently not here, to no value of any kind.
If this is a ticket which can be cancelled with a fee and a credit issued, you need to cancel the flight before it departs or you lose all value.
Did your brother by any chance purchase insurance on the tickets, did the CC he used have some coverage or does he have any through his work / personal insurance policies?
Unfortunately, there is no definitive answer without details and we will all be speculating.