Booking flight with miles
 

Hi,

I am planning a family trip to DisneyWorld next year and have some questions about booking flight with miles.

Flying out of LAX

If I book the flight using miles via AA/United/Southwest, am I entitled or eligible to cancel the flight months down the road without any fees or penalties?

Anyone have experience on this?

Without status, AA and United charge (hefty) penalties to cancel and get your miles back. AA is $150 + $25 for each additional passenger. UA is $200 per passenger.

Southwest allows you to cancel and get the miles back without penalty (you may be out the taxes, but they are just $5.60 per person each way).

Airlines vary. Most will allow you to redeposit the miles with a fee. The amount of the fee varies from airline to airline, and often with the frequent flyer status of the person who wants to redeposit the miles. Each airline's Web site has details of its policies, and is the only official source of that information.

In addition, you can normally get a refund of any government fees and taxes you paid for the award ticket(s).

One strategy for redeposit without fees is to wait until the airline changes the schedule of the flights you booked. At that point you can say "I'm sorry, but the new time doesn't work for me" and ask them to redeposit the miles instead. They will. This is chancy, but if your decision to cancel is far enough out, the odds of a schedule change in one direction or the other are pretty good. If it gets close to the cancellation/redeposit deadline (the airline, or its Web site, will tell you what that is) and nothing has changed, you can still redeposit the miles with a fee then, so trying the waiting game doesn't cost anything.

With Southwest you can get the $5.60 refunded back to your credit card, so you're not even out that if you cancel. (Actually the website gives you a choice of a refund or putting it on a travelfund credit for the future, but the obvious choice is a refund).

The great award ticket flexibility with Southwest can come in very handy.

Thanks for all the information, much appreciated.

So it looks like to map out my trip prior to booking any flights with AA or United

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Note that AA award flights booked with AA miles allow free date/time changes as long as there are equivalent award seats available on the new flights.

AA award flights booked with BA Avios require payment of a fee (to BA) for changes, but for outright cancellations, you would merely forfeit the $5.60 in taxes paid per ticket, and would get your Avios re-deposited.

I believe AA tickets are only valid a year from the date they are booked, so you can't keep extending the tickets.

Something to keep in mind.

What if the changes are not equivalent award seats? can i pay the difference with points again?

So basically, if i cancel in its entirety, i won't get the points back?

Thanks

Every program has a website with its rules.
Every program has a forum on this website, most of which have a sticky or other post which has collected this easily obtainable basic information.


Re: AA, you can always cancel and re-deposit your miles by paying the cancel/re-deposit fee listed on its website.

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If you book a SAAver award flight with AA miles and change to an AAnytime award flight, you would just pay the mileage difference.

If you cancel an AA award flight booked with AA miles and want the miles back, you would have to pay the re-deposit fees set forth in Post #2.