todorovic

The redeposit fee as explained here is for the award travel and has nothing to do with the upgrades. I believe that you will still be able to cancel the upgrade and get your miles back without a fee if you do that before the first flight (on UA your original class of service needs to be available but I don't know how that works on CO).

uprightposition

+ 1

adding: i view the close-in fee as the only difference between american and united. this is now an excellent reason to dump my united credit card and double down on my american advantage award-earning bank account.
so thanks for making that decision an easy one, i guess.

raehl311

Personally, I don't see why award change fees should be any different than restricted economy change fees. If it's $150 to change the economy ticket, it should be $150 to change the award ticket, at least for saver awards.

But the close-in booking fees are ridiculous. Don't tell me my miles are good for free travel then make me pay to book it.

This is exactly the kind of crap that got me to switch to CO from DL in the first place. But DL has undone most of their crap..... might be time to switch back.

entropy

The close-in booking fee is obnoxious. It was before, it is now, and will continue to be. It was one thing when they actually had to FEdEX paper tickets for you, or even if a human was involved. But since most of these transactions are occurring online, its just an obnoxious money grab. Yay Changes we'll like (tm).

LAX

Introduction or reintroduction of any fees is in my book, no matter the amount.

BTW, for the 1K fee waivers, would existing awards booked as non-1K be eligible for the waiver when one cancels & redeposits as newly minted 1K? I am pretty sure the reverse is true (ie: any awards booked as 1K will lose the waiver once dropping to non-1K).

LAX

kurjan

The old UA charged for changing routing or changing carriers (for example, changing from UA to LH flying SFO-FRA cost $150). So UA charging for changing carriers is nothing new.

noonflyer

So it seems that the hammer is falling on us all. When will a large carrier care about bringing in new customers instead of chasing and scaring the ones they have away? Holding breathe...

nnn

+1

By your own logic correlating certain costs of revenue ticketing with those of award ticketing, a close-in fee makes sense. Just as it generally costs more to buy a last-minute revenue ticket, it will cost more to buy a last-minute award ticket.

Regardless, of course we all wish there were no fees for anything. But that world does not exist. Award fees are a revenue stream for airlines. And a close-in fee makes sense from the airline's perspective insofar as it protects the full-fare revenue stream.

There will be winners and losers with this change, as with any involving a give and take. I, for one, see this as a net gain.

ijgordon

It's much less obnoxious than charging $2000 for a close-in revenue ticket.

So Congress is going to mandate free food and movies on board? Or say either you offer it for free or not at all? Come on, really. I think the only thing they can control (directly or indirectly) on this topic is what gets taxed and what has to be disclosed in advertising. Otherwise we might as well go back to 1977.

anc-ord772

Not bad overall. I would like to see UA adopt the CO simple award changes definition.

Nice work on this one. Can't have it all with the close in fee. I was upset at first but recognized the net benefit with the tiered structure.

Vunder31

Current cost of miles redeposit for CO Gold members: $25. Future cost: $100. How is that a "positive change"?

WineCountryUA

Should have made it clear I was talking from the perspective of a UA MP elite (as are the folks I was replying to). For the OP members the redeposit fee have increased for some in this alignment process -- you have a more legitimate beef.

bocastephen

Of course not

They have been talking about stepping in and blocking baggage fees, both for carry-on bags and requiring airlines to check the first bag for free.

tarheelnj

I'm going to take a shot here at a possible benefit of the close-in fees.

Remember that the availability of the product we're talking about (award tickets) is completely up to the whim of the airline. There's no commitment to making that product available in any quantity on any date, much less at any particular price. Is it likely that there will now be more award seats available close in because the airline has the opportunity to charge for it? So those concerned about paying for a mileage reward might not have had the reward ticket available before.

Same thing for the higher fee for changes. The highers fees could incent the airline to make more seats available. In other words, there's no debate about change fees if there's nothing to change to.

I use mileage for last minute personal trips regularly. These are mostly shorter commuter flights that would otherwise cost $800-1,000.

The proof of whether I'm completely nuts or not will be whether the inventory of reward tickets improves when these changes take effect.

JT_BOS

By extending this logic, one can argue airlines have no incentives to release any awards seats more than 21 days in advance. Those who see the bottle half full can say the good thing is there will be more seats within 21 days...