Cheapest possible flight (How do I redeem this flight credit?)
 

A family member had to cancel an international flight and so they have a sizable flight credit that they can use within the next year. We have to pay a $250 fee upon redemption and can buy any ticket, and the remainder amount is mailed to our home for use with any other flight without regard to the person.

A few questions:
1. Any way around the $250 fee or to reduce it?
2. Because we have to buy a ticket, is there some way to find the cheapest United tickets possible? We don't intend on having the family member fly - we just want to release the cash value so we can use it for other flights.

from United Refund Policy:

United will refund change fees and tickets in certain cases. All requests must be received before the expiration of your ticket and must be accompanied by proper documentation (see below). If the refund request is approved, a refund, minus a $50 USD processing fee*, will be provided to the original form of payment. This policy applies in the case of illness or death of the traveler, traveling companion, or immediate family member, as well as customers actively on jury duty at the time of planned travel.

That clears that up for me - thanks a bunch :)

I was also looking advice on the cheapest ticket in system in order to cancel my ticket, book this one pay the fee and have the rest issued in form of a voucher for future use.

Any ideas which would be the cheapest flight?

So far, I think I've narrowed it down to 3 characteristics:

(1) 1-way
(2) Regional
(3) Off-season

I also anticipate it will involve either a partner flight or United flight, because those are the ones I think we can purchase through United. If it's United, it will likely involve a flight through these locations where they have a major hub: http://www.united.com/web/en-US/cont...s/default.aspx

I think I will have to do the following to figure this out:
1. Compile a list of all US cities with United/partner hubs
2. Find the distance between each
3. Determine the month in which flights are historically cheapest
4. Use Kayak to do some comparisons and pick the flight

So far, it doesn't appear that there is a tool/website that can do all of this automatically, and that's okay. http://www.kayak.com/explore/ is the closest I could find, however, I couldn't filter it by airline.

The cheapest I could find in ITA was JFK IAD route OW at 66 USD in february.

SFO-LAX OW is $69.

ORD-DTW also can be had for in the $60 range. I have done exactly this.

But may I suggest a better option? Use your remaining flight credit to buy a refundable ticket. You will lose the change fee initially. But then you can refund your new ticket in the full amount, and not "lose" that simply to get the remainder back in a new voucher. Make sense?

Has the flight been cancelled yet! In these cases, I often hold on to the reservation. You never know if there will be a significant schedule change that can trigger a full refund withou fee.

Haha, last time I tried this, knew my flight was sold out and/or overbooked, and was on the same initial flight as my wife (she was connecting to somewhere different). So was hoping for a VDB, and went to the gate.

When it became clear a few minutes before departure that they weren't going to need anyone, I canceled, as it had to be done by flight time. Then, a couple of hours later, the connection I was booked on got canceled. But such is life, I guess.

Of course that it makes sense. Which booking class are refundable? In order to check what ticket can I buy? Also when refunding can I change the credit card on which I want the refund? because I do not want the credit to land in the original credit card.

many thanks

I always check DEN-AMA. Got one for < $50 recently.

Edit: A quick check suggests that the days of sub-$50 DEN-AMA OW fares may be over for now.

That's a great idea - thank you very much for mentioning it :)

What is the cheapest current UA systemwide one-way fare?
 

I need to preserve an unused expiring ticket and plan to buy a one-way cheap fare and take the voucher for future use.

Any ideas?

IAH-AUS/SAT/DAL/CRP?
LAX-SFO/SAN/SMF/OAK?
ORD-DTW/IND/MSP/MCI/STL?

Thanks for any advice.

Typically AUS-IAH, or LAX-SFO.

Doing a very large ITA matrix search will pull these or your other options out.

(IAH to AUS with a 1,000 mile radius on either end, followed by the same for LAX-SFO).