Originally Posted by
jsloan
Neither. However, I suspect the "one-time change" they're offering you would waive fare differences (for the same destination on or about the same travel date). That's the benefit of a schedule change -- UA will generally put you on any flight that sounds reasonable to the agent, even if it was more expensive when you first made your purchase.
That's my thought as well -- the normal "changes are free" doesn't wave fare difference where schedule change, irops, etc. as well. Depending on how friendly you are to the agent and how major the schedule change doesn't even need to be same airport -- IIRC it's a relatively soft 300 mile radius -- I've been doing a far amount of DCA-IAD-DCA ping ponging on behalf of myself and my wife and in the past a possible PHX-TUS shuffle (wound up staying with PHX as ticketed) a while back