Folks, its been ages since ive posted almost a year or more maybe.... but Ive been with you all this time....

Like some or many of you for this matter I am upset with united's new use it or loose it policy which my travel agent summarized to me as this:
Ticket has No value after travel dates if not used or changed with applicable change fee and fare on or before original date of travel

so the question has to be asked.. Can i have a non-refunable ticket say for $400 on 10/1/02, and the travel date is coming up and with no need to make any future travel arrangements at this time, so in effect i am risking loosing all ticket value as the calender rolls past that day. Can i theoretically call united tell them I need to buy a full fare ticket and I'd like to apply the 400 towards it minus the change fee. Then a couple of days later, call back and say i changed my mind and ask for all the value of the full fare back??

ps as a 1p i have been able to go stanby for the last 10 days or so with no fee, but I am always given the "you know i should charge you for this" line. I almost want to say fine, but everytime you get me there late due to misconnects or mech failures i will charge you and end up ahead. I wrote Customer service a note on the whole stanby issue. I urge you to do the same.