Originally Posted by
eponymous_coward
Exactly. Which is why I will want this resolved well before I show up at LHR (and I planned it so: flights on UA metal, plenty of time for things to resolve one way or another). If it turns out "nope", I'm good.
This is the "rather safe than sorry" approach which is completely understandable. I like to be at the airport 3 hours before departure arguing about it, with a good solid backup plan in place. They are more likely to honor the fare when you are in a situation where the flight is really needed, than a few months in advance when they can reasonably argue(although it would be a moot point with the DoT) that you can make alternative arrangements for the trip.
So far I've only had to do this once (successfully), other times they have reinstated the tickets themselves a few days/weeks after cancelling them initially.