Empress-

I strongly agree that the 'no change' within 24 hours of travel is very capricious, bordering on punitive.

UA allows charges $100 for award changes, unless its same day standby.

The no redeposit within 21 days is a brilliant (in an evil way!) of converting an unlimited liability into a one year liability for AP. I don't like it one bit. My guess is that AP analyzed award change/cancellation patterns and concluded that most folks rebook similar awards within a year; hence the methodology behind the policy change.

AC/AP cost per changing/cancelling an award or paid transaction is likely a fixed expense, so I can't see how AP can rationalize charging a different fee for a paid vs. award transaction.


tcook-

I strongly agree that one of the benefits of being SE should be elimination if not deep reductions of all related fees that Empress outlined.



everyone-

Lets not be naive here. Our miles are not transferable into other programs. AP and other FFPs reserve the right to make changes at any time (and they obviously have). Recognizing that award fees (like fuel charges and stupid tax add-ons) are here to stay, its time for US to have the paradigm shift and treat award travel as EXTREMELY CHEAP TRAVEL ALTERNATIVES instead of FREE TRAVEL ALTERNATIVES to paid travel.

Because of all the FFPs desire to be competitive with each other the last 4-5 years, we forgot that they also have the ability to exercise their monopoly positions as exclusive gatekeepers of our miles. Based on these recent fee policy changes, we won't be forgetting anytime soon!!!!!