Originally Posted by
princeville
I'm not great at tracking prices after booking, so this is my first time attempting this. I have a one-way flight scheduled later this month (regular economy, booked on united.com) and the price has dropped. I tried choosing the option to change the flight, and the same flight appears, but it says that regular economy isn't available, but I can switch to fully refundable economy plus a $9 travel credit. If I choose the fully refundable option, then cancel for a refund, will I anger the UA gods if I then book the exact same flight at the lower price?
What I typically do (as of this year) is grab that flight as part of a new booking search (but don't go to the "payments" page yet in the checkout flow). Then I cancel the existing flight to get a future flight credit for the full value of the flight. Give it ~30 seconds and then continue the new booking to payment page - your FFC should appear and if it doesn't you can look it up using the record locator of the cancelled flight. You'll then be left with a remaining FFC balance equal to the full price drop.
No need to deal with the slightly more complicated (from my read) scenario you describe as there's no need for it to be refundable to cancel now that change fees are gone.