Flight Change Back to Original Flight - after $550 in Change fees - What to do?
 

Hello all. I'm writing this for a friend who occasionally uses United for business (I'm a DL person so I don't know UA's policies). Any help/advice/recommendations you guys and gals could leave for her on here would be great.

Here is her message:

"I need to rant and I hope you all listen. I purchased a $600 plane ticket on United. One week before the flight, I paid an additional $550 to change my ticket (don't even get me started on change fees) to leave earlier as I had a meeting I was required to attend. The day of the flight, United cancelled the earlier flight, put me back onto the original flight and refuses to refund the $550 because "they still got me to my destination." How is this okay? How can the airlines dictate such terrible pricing and customer service strategies? And I as the customer am just supposed to accept this? Grrrr....I'm beyond irritated. Any advice from my traveling friends on how I can get a resolution?"

It is highly doubtful that this happened as written.

When did UA cancel the flight?

Were there not options to go to any other earlier flight?

Why did someone pay $550 to change a $600 flight?

It will be very difficult to provide recommendations on this without specific flight numbers and dates.

One risk of buying non-refundable tickets are change fees. The idea is to buy them when your plans are almost certain. If they change, the risk you took to get the cheaper fare rears its ugly head. Ranting about being on the losing end of a bet you take is foolish.

As others point out, more of the story is needed to sort out the fees and whether or not they are change fee penalties or a mixture of that and add'l fare, etc.

Trip in vain might be a valid argument (and supported by the change), unless she flew anyway.

I could see this happening - a $200 change fee plus a $350 increase to a higher fare class. Then UA cancels the flight, and moves pax to other flights.

I would be frustrated too, but need to remember it's not like UA had these specific circumstances in mind when it either applied its change fee policies or cancelled the flight. Just an unfortunate combination of circumstances.

I would send a brief e-mail to CS explaining what happened and requesting a refund of the $550. If life were fair, there would be a refund. Whether that will happen or not is another question.

I'll try to get specific flight #s and report back.

I'm guessing she paid $600 originally, and then the fare bucket filled up, and the difference + change fees ended up being $550 (which $550 would have been cheaper than buying the new ticket in the current fare bucket).

Like I said, I'll try and get more details, just wondering if there is anything else that can be done rather than just repeatedly calling CS til you get the right Agent to help you.

They needed to leave early and paid the change + upfare (original fare not available) + fee. This could easily equal $550.

sorry to rain on your parade OP, but there is a nearly 0% chance of getting that $ back. UA is like a black hole when it comes to $$, easy to get sucked in and impossible to get it back out. i was just denied a refund on a ticket that i had to cancel due to hospitalization. they're truly a merciless company.

Unless the flight was departing the EU (in which case the OP's friend can probably claim €600 compensation), I doubt United will be paying out anything here. But a polite email into CS might get some funny money.

If your friend used an AMEX (corporate or other) he/she may consider contesting the charge. It might be difficult to win, but it is worth a shot and AMEX is pretty good when it comes to questionable charges (which one could argue this is). They are also likely to have a better shot at forcing United's hand on something ridiculous like this than you are, and AMEX tends to treat customers well (especially if it was a corporate AMEX).

And a one-way on any other airline would've been more?

Once you changed to the other flight, any relation to the first flight doesn't matter. Would everybody who paid $1,150 on the earlier flight be asking for money back because the later flight was less expensive? Of course not.

They will not refund the $550, nor should they.

The return segment will be canceled if he/she skip the outbound segment.

I was on a 2 segment one way in F and C, (Discount F and C) and the first segment was canceled. I got re routed on two CR2s (Y only). My request for a refund was denied, as the last minutes change booked me into Y, which cost more than Discounted F and C. According to one phone lady, I was lucky they weren't asking me to pay more. I had to dispute the original ticket to get UA to refund the difference based on pricing and availability at the time I booked.

I feel for the OP, I would be livid too. A dispute may be the only option.

Ah, I missed that this was the outbound.