Sorry about that. You are indeed right: Even if I may be correct on the probability part, it’s caveat emptor, and the right decision comes down to individual situations. I was probably thinking of the inverse: The fact that r/t tickets get you discounts in some domestic markets is in no way a generalizable rule.

Again, not more false than the implied assertion that the inverse is true. I have a number of international credits restricted to city-pairs. Unless we want to get deep into what “generally” means, I was trying to assert that ignoring it could end in costly misery. Unless one of the UA folks on here would confirm either way, we’re probably stuck here. (I’m guessing fare codes also play a role.)

I have had zero domestic credits in my own name that are restricted to city-pairs. Zero. Maybe this happens to people in the US a lot, but not to me. I have had it happen to me with several fairly common destinations in Europe, though.

I may have had some awfully bad luck, and probably I have. But I find that a poor defense of how the system should work. It is a bad customer experience. (To have a bad luck, that is. We’d all rather be lucky than dead.) . For me, I have been able to expense most of these things, but what if you cannot do that? It might be an argument between contracted rules, and what feels reasonable to customers. I’m in the customer experience camp.


I obviously get that. It’s not like either one of us only travel on school camping trips. While my argument was not about arcane fare rules, my trip wasn’t even 7 days to begin with. Being asked for a $10K additional charge (not change fee) on a $14K trip in J when ample inventory is available, is simply beyond the pale from a customer experience viewpoint. If you do not agree, I suspect I can’t get you there. Just like nobody can make me think my experiences was a good one just because the fare rules allowed the airline to do something. (And I’m in the far-far super lucky camp where very little of this has come out of my own wallet. Still doesn’t make it a good non-paying customer experience.)

(In this case I unfortunately don’t know the difference between the online vs the call-in experience. One of the great GS benefits is the ability to call in and get somebody on the horn quickly, so I never checked the app/web. However, not so long ago, I was not so privileged, and then the wait times at UA often made it an untenable proposition to pick up the phone.)

Agreed! I never thought about this use case, and did not know about ticketing date based pricing rule for itinerary changes. Hasn’t worked for me internationally, and I can think of a couple of times it also hasn’t domestically. But if this is a thing, I think it well worthy of changing the approach to certain itineraries. My main own reason for not liking r/t tickets is to not have my return canceled if I miss the outbound. (Don’t ask. 😁 )


There is nothing needed to tell anyone, I suspect. I would just expect that changing your tickets on an international journey to be expensive. If it hasn’t been for you, that is objectively great! Others might just take a cautionary note, that it could happen. My own experience has been that changing a o/w international ticket has come with far fewer contract rule driven change gotcha’s than a r/t itinerary. For me this has several times made it cheaper to buy a new return ticket from where I am, travel back to the US, and then just discarding the second leg (rather than changing the return details and keeping the same itinerary code). YMMV.

Perhaps. I am not trying to say there are ghosts in the UA machine, but the “simple” rules appear either poorly thought-out, or so heavily optimized in the airline’s favor, that they ends up screwing the customer. And it is not as simple as current day inventory. When you throw in o/w vs r/t pricing, and the fact that changing your ticket may throw you into another category for pricing purposes, this seems heavily tilted against the buyer. I have several times abandoned the return leg of my international ticket instead of changing it, and buying a new r/t (and abandoned the return leg of that new ticket as well), because it got me home, and ended up costing me less money. I understand this doesn’t happen to everybody, but to have had that experience several times, would indicate (to me, at least) that it is a non-zero probability, which warrants consideration. YMMV.

I would merely want to point out that changing your return on an international ticket may be pricey, and your fare class could also impact that. Not saying this will bring instant joy, but if this change scenario happens, it might be worth checking out a new itinerary with the identical date for going back to (presumably to the US), but picking a return date to wherever you are at some point when prices seem good. (TL;DR Buying two r/t tickets and only using half of each can be a cost saving decision.)

This reads to me a splitting hairs, but sure. Most of my domestic tickets are booked in fare classes where UA will just refund to my CC (which happens to be United branded, but is not a requirement - great benefits, though), and that is not true for all fare classes. On the occasion that the fare rules do not allow this, however, I can easily use my credit on most any other UA booking, system-wide.