Khabibul35

Thanks in advance to anyone who might help.

My wife made a reservation for a summer trip with UA about 3 months ago and now her friend will be in Europe at about the same time and she wanted to change the return portion (pushing it 1 week back and returing from MOW rather than BCN).

I was wondering if there's anyone who could help with UA policies on this since a search came up empty.

When I flew ages ago, NWA would usually allow you to change just the return portion no problem based on the round-trip price once your trip commenced. If this was an option, I'd take the risk and let UA do this, but I don't know UA's policy on this.

Aside from that, would it be possible to change the return portion without repricing the whole trip. The prices aren't much higher but the particular flight she's on seems to have gone up and would require her to travel separate from her family which would be less than ideal.

brp1264

Good luck.

What I have found is that once you start the trip, you can only change the dates of the flights, not the departure or arrival airport. Can't do stopovers either... this has caused me to have to fly some funky itineraries as well as throw away return tickets and purchase one-ways. Usually the change fee for international is $250 plus any change in fare.

Before the trip starts, most changes can be made.

Khabibul35

Hmm, that's unfortunate.

What if I changed the date on the return portion and then bought a ticket MOW-BCN. Would that trigger a reprice on the outgoing portion?

Could I do that once the trip has begun already? In this case, NWA used to just allow you to change the flight without a penalty (minus the change fee) as long as the same fare bucket was available.

Does anyone know the rules for changing your ticket once the trip has begun?

Often1

1. You haven't provided any details of the fare basis or esact route on which you are ticketed and the change(s) you want to make. Any answers you get here are based on incomplete information.

2. But, presuming that you are on a pretty standard non-refundable/changeable ticket, you can make the change to the return, but it will cost $250 + fare difference for the route. That could be a lot or a little depending on exact routing + dates.

3. As always, when you have questions such as this, why not call UA and ask directly. Let them look it up, calculate it and tell you, before you start worrying.

Khabibul35

I called UA about changing the return portion to a reservation once travel started and they said it would be possible and entirely without restrictions as long as you pay the $200 change fee and pay the fare difference.

I asked if you could change the city on the return and they said no problem and that it would be the same thing (change free + change in fare).

I made sure it wouldn't be the OW price, but based on the return portion of the round-trip flight.

I'm a little skeptical about taking a phone reservation agent's word as golden, but she seemed rather sure about it. Does this sound right to you guys?

P.S. - They said it wouldn't be possible to keep the outbound if I wanted to change the return without it being repriced.

sbm12

The fare for the new itinerary will be recalculated based on the fare difference between the old one and the new one. In this case it should price only changing the return half if you make the change after the outbound, with the caveat that it will depend on what inventory and fares are available at that time. And, yes, it should still be able to use the restricted, return fare rates rather than just a one-way ticket.

clacko

price the ticket you want & that will give the info you need.....new price - old ticket price + fee.....

MarkedMan

Did it last year for my BH (what is it with BHs not making their mind up?) in OP's exact same situation (oh, my friend's going to be in London, can you re-route me to leave through LON instead of FRA, etc etc etc).

So, I had to change LIN-FRA-SFO to LHR-SFO (and get a mileage OW ticket LIN-LHR with some handy leftover BA miles). 1K agent spent a good bit of time with me trying several combos of LHR-SFO to find something that would price so that I'd not be out much more than the 250 (as this was rather late) and we ended up with LHR-LAX-SFO which cost me something like 256 bucks, so we did pretty well. No sweat in principle, the only issue as sbm12 says is you need to get a bit lucky finding fare buckets, so I'd do what clacko says and price some itins for yourself so you can find one that will work within the financial bounds you are willing to live with, either that or you'll have to have the agent do it on the phone which can actually be more time consuming.

SFOTurtle

I have a similar question although I haven't commenced travel. I have an int'l itinerary on a W fare for Sept travel. I'd like to change the return flights. I know I'll incur a $250/pp change fee for making the change. When I price out the new itinerary, it shows that the total fare is about $200 less.

When I looked at making the change online, UA.com doesn't reflect any fare difference in my favor -- it just states $0 and then $250 for change fee. Before I call, I thought I'd ask here if I'm entitled to the fare difference and whether I can credit that towards the $250 fee, or whether I have to pay the $250 fee and then get a paper voucher or $$ in my Travel Bank for the difference.

Also, if I'm confirmed in C using GPUs on the outbound, am I risking losing those by making the change on the return? I'm worried that they'll have to re-ticket the entire itinerary and I'll lose the upgrade in the process.

Khabibul35

OK - I am sooooo frustrated with this!
With my wife's outbounds completed, I just called UA (twice) and the agents are telling me it must be rebooked as a one-way fare since that's all their system seems at the moment. Of course, one way is $1,000 more expensive.

Does anyone definitively know whether I'm entitled to rebook the return one a round-trip basis? Or is it definitively based on a one-way basis?

Who can I talk to about this with the agents being completely dense when it comes to the issue saying "support" has the final word?

UA Insider

Hi Khabibul35, generally the system will re-price this for the agent using all applicable rules, so there is not too much room for misinterpretation. As sbm12 mentioned, one question I would ask to help troubleshoot is whether or not the original class of service you booked on the flight is available on the new flight? If it is not, the cost to change is generally higher than just the change fee alone.

Shannon

Khabibul35

It's from a different city - so I don't think the fare basis would have any effect at all since the fare needs to be completely recalculated.

The issue is really whether when the fare is recalculated and reissued whether it would be on a round-trip or one-way basis. I was initially told round-trip and am now being told one-way!

UA Insider

Ah, I see now. I hadn’t caught the city changes. BCN to MOW, right? Without looking at the reservation, that could indeed be significant enough to generate the re-price difference you’re being quoted. If you want to PM me her reservation, we can look at it tomorrow.

Shannon

Khabibul35

An update on the situation:

Everything's resolved thanks to UA Insider graciously offering to help me with the reservation. She's truly an asset to this forum and it's so refreshing to see people trying so hard to resolve a problem that's really not so easy to fix. So, a big shout out to her.

As far as what I've learned about changing reservations once the outbound is flown:

1) Changing the return portion once the outbound flown is possible. If you don't change the original or destination - changing the res seems to be fairly routine. It can be done online and is more or less painless.

2) That being said, selection is a bit more limited. Some options that are available during the initial booking don't show during the change process. This may lead to higher fares, but in my case it did not. (When I was looking to keep cities the same).

3) Once you try to change the origin or destination, the flights begin to price out one-way. This obviously makes the far much more expensive. (I want to add that UA representatives seem not be aware of this. When I asked before the outbound, they assured me it would be on a round-trip basis).

4) Regular customer support needs to call a special department to get a bookable fare if you need to change cities. This can take upwards of 10-15 minutes. During a particularly busy period it took 40+ minutes to look up one flight. In addition, they need to call this department for every option you want to price out. This is a pretty frustrating procedure.

Bottom line: Change your ticket before you fly if at all possible. Once you fly, changing the return isn't too bad if you keep the city pairs the same. Changing cities after outbound is flown becomes expensive and will leave you paying the one-way fare in the fare difference.

Hope this helps info someone in the future.

RChavez

Bumping this thread because it seems to be the most closely relevant thread to my situation. I am due to fly on the following routing: HKG-HND//NRT-LAX-JFK where the stop in TYO is <24 hrs, but the onward happens the next calendar day.

I would like to take the flight HKG-HND, but then change the ticket to add a stopover at a later date. Effectively cancelling NRT-LAX-JFK before the NRT flight departs, and plan to change the dates at some point in the future when I have firmer plans.

The fare (HKG-NYC) permits stopovers en route at 100 USD.

However, 1K/Rate Desk is telling me that all changes have to be made before I fly HKG-HND, and I can't insert a stopover once I've flown HKG-HND, and I would lose the remaining value of the ticket if I didn't fly onward from TYO.

This last part seems incorrect to me. My experience with other airlines is that provided the original fare rules permitted, I could change dates en route and pay the applicable fare difference & change fee. Forfeiting the value seems incorrect provided I let them know in advance of the NRT-LAX-JFK flights that I wouldn't be flying.

Any UA experts that can chime in here?