Originally Posted by
WillTravel4Food
Cancel online. Pay the cancellation fee per person, excepting for Gold and Gold75K. Also if the miles are going into a Gold or Gold75K account then there is no fee. Miles are immediately returned to the account.
That is one way of doing it, though it's not required.
Another way is to cancel the reservation and get the ticket numbers emailed to you. You will not pay the fee until you redeposit the miles (note that the ticket expires a year after originally scheduled travel). The requirement to pay the fee (or not) is determined at the time that you need to pay it.
This can be useful if you are not MVPG+ but plan to be within the next year, and are ok "floating" the miles until your status changes. I saved $125 by doing this the year that I qualified for MVPG.
It works for cash tickets too, not only awards.