Originally Posted by
hscottm
But for a customer (my colleague) who rarely flies United (has 2 million lifetime US miles) at the end of the day it sounds to him like they want $4k to change his ticket. Its a refare, ok, big deal - thats semantics to customers that will not likely fly UA again in the future.
A 2MM flier doesn't understand about advance purchase tix and changing the outbound segment?
Originally Posted by
GoingAway
Your friend can get as upset as they like, they can choose to never fly the airline again but it's entirely without merit as they should know what they purchased along with the associated penalty rules.
It also doesn't make any sense to hold this against UA (except, perhaps for the poor explanation by the phone agent), as you'd find the exact same types of advance purchase tickets on just about about any discounted int'l C ticket. This is UA doing something unusual; it's standard industry practice.
Frankly, I'm pretty surprised that a 2MM flier wouldn't notice how great a deal he got on the original, heavily-discounted Z ticket. And if they would have been willing to pay for a regular C ticket when they booked, what's the problem with paying the difference to get that ticket now?