Originally Posted by
docbert
The cancellation fee is still $200, regardless of the cost of the ticket. There's nothing that says this fee needs to only come from the base fare part of the ticket.
So if you bought a ticket that was $150 plus $40 in taxes, UA is going to keep the $150, start to hand you the $40 in taxes, and then say 'but wait, you still owe us $50' and keep it.
Technically they could probably then say 'and you still owe us another $10' but obviously that's never going to actually happen...
The fees you pay, as previously mentioned, are
to re-issue the ticket. You don’t pay when you cancel (unless, probably, if you cancel a refundable fare that has a cancel fee - that does exist). However, those fees on non-refundable tickets are in new money. So if you have a $190 ticket and want to re-issue (I.e., change it), you pay the fee (typically, $200 for standard domestic tickets in Y) in
new money, and then have the full value of the credit to use ($190, as in your example). All taxes and fees are irrelevant - you paid $190 originally, and you have $190 to use toward the new ticket. If the new ticket is the same $150 + $40, it will pay for that.