uastarflyer

Actually, "wanna get away" discount fares are offered day of departure. At least for sale via web/app.

It surprised me to see that the ticket I booked 2 weeks prior was available for the same price on game day, multiple flight times. It was a PHX-SMF segment where I saw this.

And on UAUA until 2003 at least, INTL change fee was Zero as long as the new fare was higher. I paid $9 once x 4 to change 4 transpac tickets.

A nominal fee is fine. Extortion is not. Hence SQ abroad and WN domestic going forward. I'll kick the minimum 4 segments UA's way to maintain Gold as well.

Highly recommend folks book away from COdbaUA. It ain't all that.

danville 1K

Not too much doubt in most people's minds about who is running the show at COdbaUA. And it isn't the ChiCrew.

A very large number of tickets are changed on line and require absolutely no intervention on the part of UA. All the work that's being done is by the customer. The equivalent of going through the self checkout lane at your local grocer or Home Depot.

Circa 1996 the change fee was $35. It changed to $75 right after the turn of the millennium.

hobo13

I'm pretty sure that's what I meant when I said that change fees are NOT indicative of the amount of work that goes into it. @:-)

It's an arbitrary money grab, plane and simple.

unavaca

As someone who rode WN like the bus for years, I've never seen this happen between the Bay Area and LAX.

They even have a dedicated sprite that they overlay on Wanna Get Away on day of departure: http://www.southwest.com/assets/imag...horizontal.png

If you don't intend to fly UA domestically, why not credit to A3 and get your *G after 25k with no UA or A3 requirement?

ChicagoDave

In some cases it may be cheaper to buy a new ticket. This fee is ridiculous.

brp1264

Came here to say this.

When it takes hours of time with multiple staff to correctly make a change, be it for IRROPs, changes in routing in advance that SHARES cannot easily accommodate, or SHARES dropping flight segments on UA or foreign carriers, the money has to come from somewhere. In this case, it's coming from us the consumer.

Can't wait to see them start announcing change fees for upper level elites on award travel.

Clincher

The last four months I have completely changed my view of UA and really any airline loyalty program. Too many issues and very little consideration for the customer. I must give credit to some frontline Airline agents that try to work with these insane rules and placate a frustrated public.

$200 change fee should work both ways, UA should pay the customer every time there is a schedule change, crew is late, or maintenance.

LASUA1K

Myself and others have left and do fly WN now. Why pay 700 to fly on an RJ when I can pay the same on WN and change my flight anytime. 200 is steep very steep. You may like to pay more but others dont and others have and will continue to leave.

Jerseyguy

One more reason I don't fly the majors. Its like the old saying Why does a dog lick himself?? Because he can. Long Live Mergers (maybe we'll have 1 big legacy airline left soon)

grahampros

The timing of this seems particularly odd given the issues over the last year. They have done nothing but piss people off. To try a stealth increase just seems stupid. A lot of folks are pissed at DL right now for SDC changes, but at least everyone got an email about it in advance.

LASUA1K

I've sern them available day of plenty of times when a flight is empty. Just recently on a trip to San Diego, both ways had WGA fares day of. They were more expensive but about 100.00 less than anytime. It doesn't happen often but does happen.

chinatraderjmr

It has nothing to do with how much time it takes. Traditionally these kind of things (change fees, Sat night stays, etc) were charged to mostly leisure travelers and as a way to get people to buy more expensive fully changeable tickets. I have no problem with that philosophy. The problem is COdbaUA makes it so difficult & confusing to know which fares are fully changeable / refundable. They do this on purpose to dishonestly try to grab the extra money TWICE!!!! Almost every other airline I've flown (both US domestic & Intl carriers make it very clear in the web sites what fares are free to change, which have fees & which are refundable. UA & it's garbage SHARES has those nice little buttons you can click to pay a higher fare if you want a "changeable ticket" etc. the problem is half the time you choose these fares, pay more & then find out "YES SIR, YOU CAN CHANGE THIS TICKET BUT THERE WILL BE A FEE". So what's the point of choosing these higher fares? NOTHING!!!! COdbaUA purposely stays away from calling a fare a "flex" fare as they don't care what you pay....almost none are really "flex"

Years from now (not to many years). UA will be a great case study in B school on a company that has done NOTHING RIGHT

jrl767

I know DL generally permits you to change or cancel a reservation at no cost in the event of a "significant" schedule change (+/- 90 min, often negotiable for 60 min, and in some cases for even less), and I have taken advantage of that on more than a few occasions

nonetheless I can't find much to disagree with in the above sentiment, esp when the disruption goes beyond what nominal compensation might cover

Often1

It's a certainty in that UA followed DL on this. UA chose to increase its change fee, while DL chose to tighten its SDC rules. That leaves US-AA and we'll see.

The point is that 2 of the 3 majors have already figured out that they need to better differentiate their flex and non-flex products if they're going to sell the former. And, the former is where the profit lies.

Unsophisticated customers are unaffected by these changes because they book what they need and pay up if they need a change. Sophisticated customers look at the bigger picture. Some don't care about change fees because they rarely change in advance, but do want SDC because they can sometimes make an earlier flight.

7Continents

Sometimes...