Hi all

I have United Airlines Silver status and I need to modify the return leg of a round trip from EWR to RSW. My current flight has me landing in EWR at 9pm. However, I recently booked another flight out of EWR that same day that I need to catch at 6:30pm.

I would like to know what you think my best options are:

1 - change the flight now. $200 change fee plus change in fare (approx $400 all together)

2 - wait till t-24 hrs and try and do the same day change fee for $75. There is only one other nonstop flight that I can change to. There are also about 5 other flights that would get me to EWR early enough, but they all have connections (is this a problem)?

3 - use miles to get a standard economy 1 way ticket. 25,000 miles (I didn't see any saver awards - not sure if that will become available later on. Flight is in 3 weeks).

4 - purchase a one way ticket out of pocket (maybe $350 or so?) and not show up to my final leg home on my current reservation

5 - get to the airport early enough and try to fly standby. As UA Silver, do you think I would have a good chance at making it onto one of the ~5 flights home? and will they still let me fly standby even though the new route is RSW -> XXX -> EWR (my current itinerary is RSW -> EWR).

Thanks for your help! I really don't want to miss my night time flight!

I would go with a one-way ticket (maybe WN or B6?) home. If it's $350, though, a one-way Saver (10K) is a better deal.

SDC is hit or miss, and if you can't miss the 6:30 pm flight, not worth it.

Then again, if you don't get SDC, you can do the one-way ticket or late booking flight then.

The cheap oneway flight would likely have to be on another carrier (delta/jetblue), as United is showing $430 for that flight (if I were going to do that, then I'd be better off paying the $200 change fee + $200 fare fee)

Yes - I wrote exactly that (WN or B6 is Southwest or JetBlue).

If you're looking at 8/25, I'd probably buy the $433 refundable one-way fare on B6, now, so you're guaranteed to have at least one option. Then wait to see if you can get a cheaper way to go on UA (SDC or cheaper fare opens up) and, if so, refund the B6 ticket.

sorry - not familiar with the acronyms yet!

thanks - that makes sense! The flight I'm rushing home to catch is the start of a multi-week international vacation. Don't want to miss that!

$316 on WN on 8/25. Not the same kind of fare as B6.

Right. Not refundable (although you could get a credit) and not nonstop either.

wound up booking a one way refundable flight on JetBlue ($430), and later cancelled at t-24 when I was able to change my original flight (total for SDC + fare difference = ~$300). Thanks for the advice!