Originally Posted by
jsloan
The absolute best way. if you have the miles, is to book the new ticket, then cancel and refund the old ticket. If it's within 30 days of departure, a fee may apply; if the itinerary originates in the US, you can avoid the fee by first changing to a flight more than 30 days in advance and then cancelling.
If you don't have the miles to float both tickets, you can change to another flight and then change back; that will reset the pricing. Or, you can change cabins and then change back.
I'm curious why the best way is to cancel, refund, and re-buy? Seems like doing the same things as a $ purchased ticket (changing to another flight and then changing back) works fine. What am I missing?
(I just did this for a domestic award: miles on May 31 were 32,500 and now 25,900 -- for a flight leaving next week!)
Originally Posted by
emcampbe
not weird at all if you paid attention to how this works.
if you buy an E+ seat, and then change flights, the fee gets refunded after that [orginal] flight takes off. So it would have done it automatically at that time. Would have happened the same way if you switched E+ seats on the same flight - they charge the extra, then auto-refund the existing purchase after the flight departs.
Plenty of reports of folks calling and getting it done earlier successfully, but that is not the normal process.
What if you switch back to the original flight?
What would you expect in this situation: I'm *G and purchased a two domestic one-way award tickets (for immediate family) at 32.5k and then a few weeks later bought E+ seats ($22 each). Now the miles have decreased form 32.5k to 25.9k.
I switched the tickets to another flight at the lower miles. (refunded mile difference shows in my account) Then, I switched back to my original flight and in the change process, I bought back the two E+ seats (now $23 each).
When should the original $44 be refunded? Should I call to get it straightened out?
(side note; my credit card shows 3 charges pending; a $23, $23, and a $46 charge. It's only been 2 days, so I'll have to see what happens and maybe deal with that with a call anyway)