Originally Posted by
rob in cal
It looks like a better approach would be to not take the Stockholm flight home and purchase a fresh roundtrip ticket Munich to SMF with the outbound leg on my flight, with a cost of only 776. The question then is, what to do about the Stockholm flight? According to a united person we talked to, if we formally cancelled this return leg, there would be a cancellation fee of some sort, iirc it was 149 dollars. So then the question is what if my wife just does a no show, doesn't contact united or anything. Would United try to create a cancellation fee, or flag our mileage program or take some type of action?
I wouldn't be concerned walking away from the BE return segment, but I personally would not combine that with booking a new RT on UA to match your return. While the risk of UA taking any action is fairly remote, I would not want to put my 1MM status at risk. If you do not fly UA frequently that would be much less of a concern.
For alternatives, if you want your wife to be on the same UA flight home with you, I agree with the suggestion of waiting until the outbound is flown and see what the change cost is. Otherwise, I'd look into booking a return on a different carrier, possibly a one-way using miles.