United vs. AA vs. Delta, 21 days rule
 

I am doing a comparison among the change fees charged by AA vs. United vs. Delta for award ticket, if the new departure date falls within 21 days of the change date.

For AA, as long as the original booking date is more than 21 days from the new departure date, there won't be any fees. For example, you booked a flight to London on the Aug. 01, the departure date was Sep. 01. On Aug. 21, you would like to depart for London the next day, you could change the departure date to Aug. 22 without any fees, as long as the same booking class was available.

For United, same scenario, you would have to pay 75 dollars to change the date.

Doesn't that make AA award ticket a much better option? Of course, Delta is the worst in this regards, you need to pay to change the date regardless whether it is within the 21 days or not.

Any other thoughts or comments?

For delta, i thought that is no change fee 21 days before departure date as long as it is available to change. Correct me, if i m wrong.

I m thinking to book an international award ticket.. only able to find one ticket for 120,000 miles business class.. may changing upon later availability.. since departure date is 11 months from now. If that is change fee, i should just wait for two 120kmonths tickets but chances are slim.

In the scheme of things, what's $75 if your getting a tkt worth $10-20K. UA does not charge the fees AA does if you want to fly F thru Europe (BA VS LH). If your getting a tkt worth $500 Thrn $75 is a lot but if your wasting your miles on that, you deserve the fee

Of course, plat & above pay no fees for anything on UA & AA and that's the majority of people on FT

You seem to be misunderstanding this. If the new departure date is within 21 days of the date you are TICKETING, then the fee applies.

In your example:

Quote:

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For example, you booked a flight to London on the Aug. 01, the departure date was Sep. 01. On Aug. 21, you would like to depart for London the next day, you could change the departure date to Aug. 22 without any fees, as long as the same booking class was available.

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You could ticket a change to Aug 21 only up to July 31.

EDIT: Reading back, I can understand why the language on the AA site would be confusing. However, read the moderator's note in the first post of this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...le-closed.html

(Two exceptions: higher mileage AAnytime awards don't have the fee, nor does a same-day change if there are award seats available and it is domestic travel.)

Actually, I seem to be the one who misunderstood. It's still allowed, as long as it's at least 21 days after the initial ticketing date. Neat.

You are wrong. All date changes to Delta tickets require the $150 change fee. Additionally, no changes are permitted within 72 hours of the flight at all. (Except using the same-day change policy, when it applies, for the $50 fee.)

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I don't think that adobe has misunderstood AA's rule at all. One can change the travel date on an award ticket without charge even one day before the new date of travel; the new date of travel merely has to be at least 21 days later than the initial ticketing date to avoid the close-in fee.

I think you're right. I had to read through the thread I linked, over to the TB thread, before I finally understood that distinction. Very interesting...

Not sure that's true. I've probably got ~ 1 million miles and points, and I'm only Gold on DL and no status anywhere else.

The DL change policy really has me bummed. I've booked JFK-MXP, FCO-JFK, almost 10 months in advance, and if I have to change by a day I have to pay $300 ($150/pp). Boo.

Wouldn't it be the policy in effect when you booked the ticket?

DL can't compare to UA or AA's programs. There are good arguments to be made for both UA & AA saying they have the best programs. There are NO arguments for DL. The program just sucks. Everyone knows if you want to get the best $$ value for your mileage, it with an International F tkt. Not only does DL not have international F, but the few partners it has that do have it do not make seats available to SkyTeam members (AF, KE, CI)

Business class fares always go on sale in every market. You can fly to any place on earth in C (Z) for under $5K (depending on season). But even with the rare F sales, you can't get to the mid east, Africa, india, etc for under $15K and that is where the best use of miles are dollar wise

You can't judge the quality of the different award programs on the basis of a single policy. It may be true that AA is the best in the particular case you have outlined. But judging the overall quality of the three programs would require that many factors be taken into account.

...because what part of Skypesos doesn't show how DL management despises their customers?

But all of that is sort of moot unless you actually do fly paid C/F for your own personal travels.

I hear you on the joy of flying a true 3-cabin F product on one of the carriers that really takes F seriously. That's where I try to use most of my *A miles. But I think I'd accept an airline with a solid 2-cabin product if redemption wasn't so insanely tight like it is on DL. A good C seat on an award is fine with me...but I never expect to see one with my DL miles.

My limited success with DL has been within North America. Simple 25k-35k awards on routes that would otherwise be expensive...like $700 to EYW or $900 to BZE. I've resigned myself to the fact that DL can be a 2cpm program that saves me real hard costs. The aspirational stuff...int'l F seats I wouldn't have actually bought with cash...that's *A for me.

+1. Also keep in mind that the airlines may have preferential treatment of its own elite members, e.g., Premier Platinum or higher level elites on UA, do not pay close-in award booking fee or change fee.

So theoretically, if today was October 1st and I want a flight on October 21st but not pay the "21 day charge", I could say buy a flight for November 1st and then change it to October 21st?

You will still have to pay the change fee in this case.

As the "new" date you want to change to ( Oct 21 ), is within 21 days of the initial ticketing date ( Oct 1 )