change fee question
 

Hi Everyone:
I apologize in advance if this is a duplicate thread but I can never get this search thing to work for some reason. Anyway, I have a $400 ticket I had to cancel from this past spring and I was wondering if I could go ahead and pay the $150 change fee without booking a ticket and then get the $400 in an e-cert to use later? I am flying to CDG in November so I could use it for that but I'd rather just pay the fee now and try to avoid using the monotonous change fee process online.

Presuming your ticket was nonrefundable, sounds like you are, in effect, wanting to pay $150 to get a refund. Don't think that will work, but maybe one of the cognoscenti here can come up with something.

Use the 'monotonous' process now to book a fully refundable ticket that is more than $400. Cancel said ticket online. If it works as it should, you should get both a refund on the CC and an e-cert.

You may even get it all on the CC.

Not gonna happen!

Well, this ticket was booked through my travel agent for work.
I would change it through her but I am going a job related trip but since my employer isn't paying a dime for it, I have to pay the change fee myself...
technically, I am not asking for a refund of the ticket....since this trip is out of my pocket, I was trying to see if I could spread out the change fee spend and the ticket spend over different transactions so it doesn't hit my pocketbook so hard all at one time.

I think the only way of getting the 400 in an ec is the method mentioned above, its worked for me a couple times

No, no and no. This will NOT work. A ticket originally booked in a non-refundable fare class cannot be rebooked as a refundable ticket -- even if you buy full Y or F/J for the new flights.