Originally Posted by
fastair
No, you bought an option to buy at th price you locked at. Y can let tat option expire and buy today at the lower price, or pay for the option to buy at a later date at today's price, but the option you bought is not transferable to another lower priced option. The CBOE would be out of business if options worked this way.
This isn't exactly the CBOE either. It would be a strong(er) selling point if they allowed a fare to be re-held in this situation. I can't imagine it happens this much, and if it does, the customer doesn't always catch it. Yet they could market it as a benefit. Plus it could make business sense because if UA fares went down, other fares likely did as well, so it would attempt to retain that business on UA rather than encouraging outright cancellation where the customer could re-shop the market.