Originally Posted by
jsloan
International and domestic itineraries work exactly the same. In both cases, if you attempt to refund a partially-used ticket, it will be repriced based upon the coupons you actually did use.
I'm not sure what you mean about getting to the "muckety mucks in Pricing" -- I'm guessing you mean Rates, but generally the agents who work there are not consumer-facing -- but for most UA itineraries, the correct fare difference (independent of any change fee) is the difference between what it would have cost to buy your itinerary originally and what you actually paid.
That means that if all you're trying to do is change the return date, it may be zero, or negative, if inventory is sufficient. It may also be positive, and even large, if inventory is limited. On the other hand, if you're trying to change cites, then it can get very complicated -- but in all cases, the correct price depends upon what you already flew and what you're now adding.
Examples:
- book EWR-MXP / FCO-EWR, change to round-trip EWR-MXP. This should combine just fine and I wouldn't expect anything outrageous.
- book EWR-MXP RT, fly the first leg, ask for a refund. This will price as if you purchased EWR-MXP. This can lead to a small, non-existent, or negative refund due to the cost of international one-way tickets.
- book EWR-MXP RT, fly the first leg, try to apply the credit to EWR-SFO. This will probably cost you more than buying EWR-SFO outright, because EWR-MXP / EWR-SFO is not a valid open jaw, and most EWR-MXP fares won't be combinable with a EWR-SFO fare.
To reiterate, though, this is all
theoretically true domestically as well. There are still many, many domestic routes where UA charges more than half the round-trip price to book a one-way ticket, and in those cases you'll see this same kind of behavior also.
While from a technical/systems perspective this
may be true, from an individual travelers perspective, I will still contain that there's a lot more caveat emptor pitfalls when flying internationally:
- Prices for international r/t tickets are rarely 2x one-way. In understand your point that for many city pairs in the US, this may also be the case. However, in the last 5 years, I have never encountered this. There is no need to come up with examples that satisfy these conditions, I am certain they do exist. But for my travel, it is simply not a factor. YMMV, of course, but on a probability based comparison, it is till a very big deal. We can agree to disagree (for whatever reasons), and it is not too hard for travelers to check out, as it does inform different booking strategies.
- Using credits for domestic tickets is generally as simple as drawing them down before you use your credit card when booking any new ticket. Internationally, credits are limited to the person on the booking (similar to domestic), and only valid for the identical city-pair of the original booking.
- When trying to use my international credits, even when deploying it to the same city pair, it has never been as easy as taking my dollar credit and applying it to the ticket I am trying to buy. Instead, I believe the system prices the itinerary I would like to use, based on the original rules of the canceled ticket. Invariably, this has resulted in it being more expensive for me to use my credit rather than buying a new ticket, not using my credit. Whether this happens a 100% of the time, as it has for me, or merely 50%, it feels extremely ...... when it happens, and the rate at which it does happens, is astronomically higher than for a domestic ticket.
- Last year, when doing a r/t IAD-HND-IAD, I found myself with meetings being canceled for my last day, and so wanted move up my return date by one day, so as to be sure to make a wedding. The r/t ticket was originally procured in J for $14K. Changing it one day earlier, would incur a $10K "change" fee (which obviously was due to the repricing of the ticket, not some random fee just to be allowed to make any change). Buying a completely new r/t ticket going HND-IAD-HND would be in $8K as the front cabin was not nearly full. If this sounds normal/appropriate for anyone, I have a bridge to sell you.
- I called the GS help line, who sympathized with my frustration, and got the approvals internally to do a like-for-like exchange, meaning I got to fly out one day earlier with no upcharge. Yes, I got their department name wrong. It is Rates, not Pricing. Boohoo on me. But this is not a high school debate team. I was merely pointing out that the folks working there can be more human and helpful than leaving your luck up to "systems." I recognize that not everybody will be able to get Rates involved, and I maybe I was lucky. In either case, I was paying them a compliment.
In my humble opinion, for domestic, it makes a ton of sense to buy two one-way tickets rather than r/t, since pricing is most of the time 2x one-way's (but check for your city pairs). For international, less so, since there is almost always a discount for buying r/t tickets, but caveat emptor:
- I have found that changing international itineraries after starting my trip almost always generates significant additional payments, which sometimes (ofttimes) makes it cheaper to abandon original tickets and buy new ones).
- I have found that using international credits almost always puts you at a disadvantage from a pricing perspective. I've never been able to use mine, since buying a new ticket has always been cheaper.
So, if you want to feel better thinking international is just like flying domestic, that's totally fine, but it isn't. Maybe theoretically, but we don't pay for our tickets with theoretical money. If you are about to make some flights, and you are not smoking OPM, I find it appropriate to warn people that it requires a little more thought than if staying within the 50.
YMMV