Originally Posted by
mangoMan
My father has a $3K+ FFC from a business class flight he had to cancel for medical reasons. It is expiring in Jan 2025 and he has no travel plans before then. He does plan to buy another biz ticket to Europe next summer. From perusing this thread it appears his only hope to use his FFC is to book a flight to Europe in Dec, wait for it to ticket, then change the dates to when he really wants to travel. My questions:
1) Is there any angle he can use to get an extension to the FFC due to the cancellation of the original flight being for medical reasons?
2) If he books a Dec ticket, and changes the dates, does the Dec ticket need to be in the same class of service (business) as he wants for the summer?
3) Does the Dec ticket need to have the exact same routing as what he eventually wants for the summer?
4) Does the Dec ticket need to have no change fees? I believe change fees only apply to Basic Econ tickets, so if he's buying J it should be a non-issue.
Don't fly UA often, so not too familiar with all the ins and outs - appreciate any help. Thx!
1. You can try asking UA but don't be surprised or disappointed if the answer is no.
2. No. Any class works as long is it's not Basic Economy and also not a refundable ticket. If the price of the December ticket in J pretty much matches the summer one then I would just do that anyway.
3. Also no. You can change the origin and destination and class of service when you use the change flight feature. This is based on my experience with domestic US one way flights. For flights to Europe it should be done as roundtrip I believe, but you should still be able to make changes to it.
4. Yes, definitely book something with no change fee. Being that this a flight to Europe you want to make sure to set it up right because if you cancel this ticket after the January expiration you will lose the value.