Originally Posted by
jsloan
In general, future flight credit from a non-Basic Economy ticket cannot be used to book Basic Economy, if that’s what you mean.
But I suspect it’s a deeper issue. Nearly all UA nonrefundable fares have a clause that states that residual value, when changing to a lower-priced fare, will be ignored. This clause is then ignored by UA when you book and cancel directly with them — they give the residual amount as a new form of Future Flight Credit that was introduced in late 2020 or early 2021. Travel agents do not have the ability to issue this new residual FFC and must follow the fare rules. You may be able to get UA to take over the booking from the travel agent and change directly through them — there may be a $50 fee. If this is a corporate travel agency, tread carefully, as cutting them out of the loop may violate your employer’s travel policy.
Neither my old (cancelled) ticket nor my new ticket was basic economy. (The old one was discounted first class and the new is a discounted economy fare, but not BE). And the cost of the new ticket is more than the amount of the FFC, so there is no issue of a residual after the FFC is applied. I think this would have all worked fine if I had just did it on the UA app. But I cannot do that now that the travel agent is holding my new reservation (and the fare they are holding is no longer available).