Trying to make a flight change and the differential is over $3000!!!
I don't fly United very often so I would appreciate if some of the more experienced UA flyers could give me insights into this situation.
I've booked a YYC-ORD-EWR-SJO return May 5-9 trip entirely in P (on the UA website). Turns out that my SO can now join me on this trip if I change the dates and routing which I can easily do as my business in SJO is flexible. My ticket cost CAD $1122.
I priced out YYC-ORD-EWR-SJO on May 1 returning SJO-EWR-DEN-YYC on May 6 for him at CAD $1115. The segments are in A, A, D, P, P and P respectively. So far so good. I couldn't make the change online (the flights I wanted weren't showing up), so I call UA to see what it would cost to switch my ticket over to the new dates and slightly revised itinerary to match his. I expected a $200 change fee. And since the new ticket is just $7 less than the old, I figured there would be no fare difference. Wrong! According to the Phillipines-based agent, I need to pay the $200 AND pay a fare differential of $3,046!!!! Yup, that's in addition to the $1115 that I've already paid! When I suggested that perhaps this was an error, she put me on hold while she went to her "support desk" and I have been on hold now for over 45 minutes! What do I not know? Is this fare differential legitimate? Any advice on what I should do next? Please help! Many thanks in advance for any assistance.