Kacee

It's how airfares work. You can't upfare one segment only if it's priced as a throughfare ROC-PDX. You can do it if you have a broken fare, e.g., ROC-ORD is a T and ORD-PDX is an S (or you could do it if the fare rules permitted you to create an end-on-end broken fare, e.g., pricing one segment as a P but leaving the other as a T).

.Benjamin.

So, If I have a W ticket, and I want to buy up to M or B, I shouldn't have to pay a "Change Fee"

Sykes

Officially the change fee is only waived if you are upgrading to a higher cabin. Unofficially, I've had some luck getting agents to waive the change fee to upfare within Economy, but in general courtesy fee waivers seem a lot harder to get than they were 6 months ago so I would expect more pushback on that now than I would have before. It is not in United's best interest to let you buy a discount ticket then upfare to a fully flexible ticket to avoid paying a change fee.

elbejt2

Was shopping for a specific round-trip online today and saw the price difference between coach and domestic first was $300 for the round trip. I booked the coach ticket and looked at the option to upgrade from the reservations section of the website - it was offered at $130 each way for a total of $260. the offer was clear that I would only earn PQM for original fare. so I called into the reservations line to "buyup" and they charged me $300 (not the $260 online). I believe that I will get the 2x PQM, but maybe I just wasted $40. anyone know?

DELee

Check your fare class.

David

bookeew

You should be earning PQM for Domestic First and not the original fare class. If it's different from R or Z<your old fare class>, then you should be fine.

elbejt2

Fare Class: United First (A)

bookeew

Properly reissued to Domestic First, you should earn PQM as if your original ticket was A.

DELee

Agreed. You will earn the 200% PQM multiplier and 1.5 PQS as well as get PQD earnings of what your original ticket cost (minus taxes and fees of course) + the $300 GGBUYUP.



David

Shoredreamer

Hi,
Still being new to MP, I am continually learning and trying to understand things (I'm still quite lost in the area of upgrades lol) but anyway, I came across this post.....is it typical to not have to pay a change fee when wanting to upgrade a previous purchased ticket? I thought any changes required the change fee unless there was some extenuating circumstance or something?

I was also wondering, if I were to purchase a flexible or unrestricted ticket, does that mean I could change and/or cancel, without penalty whatsoever? Im not sure of the specific fare class involved but the united search engine gives examples as f, a, & u for both flex and unrestricted, when using these options to search. I am considering booking something like this for next year if it does have true flexibility.

as always, Thank you fellow FT members for your continued sharing of both your extensive flying knowledge and absolutely invaluable expert advice!!!

fumje

For purchasing upgrades, practically speaking there's no additional fee required. Upgrades offers marketed via the website / app / kiosk are essentially a fee in and of themselves; alternatively, buying up to a higher-cabin fare, which can only be processed by an agent, has the change fee waived by policy.

As far as flexible tickets, the 'fare class' (e.g., F, A, U) does not have a direct relationship to fees for change or cancel. You need to check the fare rules to be sure, which is admittedly a pain if you are just using United's site.

Here's some more discussion about that:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...on-please.html

Shoredreamer

findark

Yes, there is a long-standing UA policy to waive the change fee for an upgrade on the same flight, found under GG BUYUP and discussed in this thread.

UA is a little inconsistent in its use of "flexible". That column has a minimum of "refundable minus penalty"; however for domestic travel it is basically always refundable with no penalty and a $0 change fee. Even on a fully unrestricted ticket, you would still owe any difference in fare when making a change (although with a fare that books into F inventory it's likely you won't have a fare difference). It pays to read the fare rules in this case, even though that's somewhat tricky.

Shoredreamer

Thanks, I am flying mostly international itineraries and looking into booking similar in this way so would definitely want to know if I am paying more if it will end up really worthwhile if i need to make changes or cancel. I do completely understand that the fare difference will always come into it when there is one but I just meant any penalties incurred. Also, I am not sure i am searching things right but I can't seem to find things when I put terms in the search box at top of webpage, this time I tried putting in GG BUYUP but got the message there was nothing meeting my search criteria. Not sure what I am doing wrong but this happens to me a lot when I am trying to find something that I know is on here somewhere!! Could you possibly send me a link and maybe comment/suggest what I could be doing wrong when doing my searches? Thanks again so much!

StuckinITH

I use Google: I would search with: "FlyerTalk and United and GG BUYUP". First item at the top of the search has threads related to this subject.