Originally Posted by
IAH-OIL-TRASH
OP (and a lot of travelers) wants the choice to buy discounted, non-refundable tickets and then complain when they're not treated like refundable tickets when they decide they don't like the terms they agreed to. If you don't want to pay the fee, DON'T BUY THE DISCOUNTED TICKET. Pretty simple concept. United will sell you a ticket that lets you change your mind all you want - you just have to pay more for it. That is the choice. Pure and simple.
I view the $200 as a potential fixed penalty (and it is) independent of ticket price to change your mind after buying a non-refundable ticket.
Yup - this. You want the option to change without fee, don't buy the cheapest ticket you can, then complain when you can't get a refund or change without the fee you want (presumably, most would just say, hey, I want or pay $0). On the other hand, note that much of the time, if you are only making one change, using a discount fare and paying the change fee is cheaper than buying a fully flexible changeable/refundable fare, where the price difference requires multiple changes to be made for it to make up the cost difference.
As for me, all of my travel is personal, and I've never had the problem the OP does - flying where I do, I've never had the opportunity to buy a discount ticket where the change fee is more than the ticket price itself. So maybe they can take a positive out of that.
And in all the years, I've still made out well with respect to change fees. I've made a few changes perhaps on hundreds of tickets over the last, say, 10 years or so. So $150 (when it was lower) or $200 in a handful of instances means that I have still came out was at ahead compared to if I had bought even just the tickets I changed as flexible fares.
Many seem to agree with your point that there should be a way to get some sort of value in your situation (ticket cost is less than change/cancel fee). Despite you saying you are not complaining, it sounds like you are to me. You agreed to written rules laid out by UA, but want them to abide by the unwritten option 2 which will save you $ - pointing out the rules you want are not what you agreed to doesn't make one on the "UA payroll".
Originally Posted by
Kacee
Ultimately, the change fee has nothing to do with "costs" - it is purely about revenue generation. Nor are they trying to "discourage" changes; rather they are trying to capture as much revenue as possible when changes are - inevitably - made.
Revenue generation, yes, but much of it is indirect. It is as much about discouraging changes on discount tickets as it is to encourage purchases of more flexible (and of course), higher price tickets. As I mentioned above, my experience has been that making a single change its still usually cheaper to buy a lower fare than pay a flexible one. But my travel is personal - biked in advance and in the instances when im changing, it's rarely last minute. Those refundable/changeable fares are directed more at business travelers making more than one change, or last minute changes where it is a far higher cost to change due to the fare difference.
Of course, if one could get away with the flexibility while paying the cheaper fare, they would, and any airline discouraging people from paying higher fares would quickly see its revenue and profit drop accordingly.