Originally Posted by
qofmiwok
I have booked one ways for years because every time I checked the cost was the same and I had more flexibility. Now airlines are back to charging a lot less for a RT than two one ways.
Even if there’s not a discount, for non-award tickets, if you think it’s likely that you’ll change, but not cancel, the return, it’s usually advantageous to purchase a round-trip up front. That’s because, for a one-way ticket or the outbound leg of a round-trip, any advance purchase discount is calculated based upon the date of the change, but for the return leg of a round-trip, it’s calculated based upon the original ticketing date. This can be a big difference, because on some routes airlines charge much more for last-minute purchases than they do for purchases made a few weeks in advance.
Originally Posted by
qofmiwok
I never see anywhere what happens when you want to cancel or change the second leg of your trip. Once you have already traveled the first leg. Can you do that same as if you haven't left?
Not
exactly. When you cancel a wholly-unused UA ticket, you’ll get a Future Flight Credit (FFC) that can be used by the original traveler for nearly any flight available from UA. (You may run into problems if the new fare you want is priced in a different currency). However, when you cancel a partially-used UA ticket, the resulting FFC can only be used for flights that are combinable with your original, flown outbound. This means that the trip must honor all of the restrictions of the original purchase, including maximum stay requirements, and it generally means that you have to end up with something that’s still a valid round-trip. If you buy a round-trip AUS-ZRH ticket, and then fly the outbound, you can’t cancel the return leg and then use the credit to fly AUS-NRT or ZRH-MNL; neither of those create a valid round-trip with AUS-ZRH. Depending upon the fare rules, GVA-AUS is probably OK, and LHR-AUS would probably be OK. ZRH-DFW is probably also OK; GVA-DFW may or may not be — UA has fares where either might be true.
TL/DR: There are some restrictions to the credit that you’ll get back when you cancel a one-way ticket. That round-trip discount you’re looking for only applies if you end up using the ticket to fly round-trip.
