Originally Posted by
threeoh
United posts travel waivers here:
https://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/tra...elnotices.aspx
As of this writing they haven't posted one for EWR for this upcoming weekend. They often wait till 1-2 days before to let the forecast firm up.
If they do post a waiver, that opens up one level of flexibility for you: you can change to an earlier or later flight -- even by several days -- without any fees, even if just one seat is available. If you were just connecting in EWR, you'd be able to change to a different routing to avoid EWR entirely, but generally you have to keep the same origin and destination cities as listed on your ticket. Supposed to be available through the app/website but often you have to call.
If your specific flight is actually cancelled or delayed significantly (irrops), a second level of flexibility opens up: you can get a refund, use your funds on another unrelated flight within a year, or often (agent dependent) switch to near-by airports or even other carriers. Most of these options are available through the app/website, but for some you might have to speak to an agent.
Even without either of these, if you think the risk of cancellation later in the day is high and you'd rather fly earlier, you can switch to any flight same day with SDC, $75 for non-status or free for Gold or higher, requires same fare class to be available. There's a thread on this:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...ions-wiki.html
Thanks for the in-depth response.
By the time I read your response, they updated the link to include waivers for Fri/Sat out of Newark for the storm. Surprised it happened so soon, my local reports say we won't have a confident forecast or storm track until tomorrow.
So since there's a travel waiver, I have to decide if I can "beat the storm" by getting an earlier flight. I don't know enough about airport operations to feel like I can make an informed guess on that. Is there a rhyme or reason to how they do things? I'm assuming that to a regular consumer it'll look like an on-the-fly decision based on current conditions. Any thoughts?
I'm flying ewr-jax to visit a friend, on a BE N-fare. Does the storm waiver override BE fares being non-changeable?