Originally Posted by
Academic
Can you change your return date to sometime in the future on the off chance that you could use that portion later?
If it's worth it to you to pay the $500 to change to use it in the future don't do it this way "on the off chance".
My understanding is you can just cancel the return reservation and keep the return ticket open now. You don't pay the $500 fee until you try to rebook. At that point they reprice the whole thing based on the new itinerary and add the $500 fee. If you don't actually use it you can just let the ticket expire after a year.
Note that when it reprices it'll be based on the new itinerary. So for example if you rebook the return to be 9 months after the outbound it might mean your P fare no longer actually applies since it might not allow a 9 month stay length. So it may reprice the whole trip to be in much more expensive fares and not be price effective.