Not taking flight, Credit any useful after?
 

Hi Everyone,

Quick question for the crowd,

I have a MAD-MTY tomorrow that I do not plan on taking due to work changes, After missing the flight does the ticket get canceled or does it stay active for 365 days with the opportunity to pay a change fee and re-fare to another travel day?

Cheers

What do the fare rules for your ticket state.

This could be anything from fully refundable, meaning that you may have the full sum refunded to your original form of payment to wholly inflexible in which case the ticket will be cancelled and will have $0 value.

Most likely for a typical discounted penalty fare is that if you cancel prior to departure, you will have a credit for the full ticket price and will then pay a penalty in cash at the time you use the credit. The size of the penalty will be in the fare rules for your ticket. For most fares, if you do not cancel prior to departure, you lose the value of the ticket even as a credit.

Do keep track of the flight. If it is cancelled or substantially delayed, you are entitled to a full refund, but must do that prior to your cancellation.

So, starting point is to let us know what the fare rules are for your ticket.

Its on a K fare so no refund if canceled in advance. In the past I have missed a flight and was able to go back later and change it to a further date for a 250 usd change fee. Dont remember if this was an agent doing me a favor or if that was the regular policy.

Cheers

In general, if you don't cancel before departure, your ticket has zero value. If you do cancel, you will be able to use the value by paying the change fee. See the second paragraph of Often1's post above.

Split residual value of a cancelled TPAC among more than one domestic trip
 

Had booked a TPAC for this past January using cash plus a GPU, but had to cancel after being caught up in the (then) flu epidemic. GPU expired, but am left with a residual cash value of approx $2k. Have a Doctors note that should obviate the $200 change fee. Rather than trying to re-book the TPAC (say, using the $$ plus miles to upgrade) can the cash value be applied to more than one "new" domestic trip? In other words, is this a essentially a "prepayment" balance that can be tapped until exhausted?

Yes. Barring very unusual fare rules, you can use the coupon value toward any new travel on 016 stock, and you will get an ETC for any remaining difference. However, I am speaking generally and you should probably consult with an agent regarding your particular ticket.

Thanks for the reply. It was a RT ticket. I flew one way already but the return was delayed 1.5h, so I drove back instead.
At the time that I canceled, I was having trouble hearing the phone agent since there was a bad connection.

In fact, I'm having trouble figuring out how to use the credit at all since there is nowhere for me to select rebook once I login on United.com.

Go into the cancelled tickets tab ... then use the rebook function

As mentioned. assuming your cancelled properly, you will need to go to Manage Reservation and find the Cancelled reservations tab. Once there this will be treated as a flight change -- there will be a $200 fee (new money -- not a deduction from your credit) for most domestic economy non-refundable tickets.

If there is more than $200 of value, then it can make sense to use the credit. The online flight change can sometimes unhelpful or give strange prices for the new inti. If it seems odd, just call --- there will be no additional fee for calling.

There is a chance, due to the original issues, you might get the agent to waive the change fee but that can only be done with a live agent. Hopefully, the agent doing the cancellation marked the cancellation as due to the delays.

No canceled tab when I check there. Looks like I have to call in.

You should see
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...e25c6cbf8f.png

tabs at Manage Reservations

Check Past if nothing in Cancelled

Thanks, I do see the past flight, under the past tab. However, no option to rebook.

You will need to call, as it appears it wasn't marked as canceled (prior to departure) and you will need to convince UA you properly canceled.

Refund for flight I cancelled
 

Apparently I canceled a flight last year and completely forgot about it (very complicated). Have flown UA many times since. There was no indication anywhere obvious that I had potential funds to be applied to purchases, I only realized this today when an agent mentioned it as I was making other reservations for two of us. She didn't volunteer to apply it, and I didn't think to ask her to. She then totally screwed up what she was supposed to do, and I wasted about an hour getting another agent to correct; but I digress).

When I then went to check it out myself, it appears that I can only apply the refund (minus the change fee) to a ticket for myself.
Is this true?

I don't know that I will fly another itinerary in the remaining time that would use the entire refund for myself. So am I SOL, or is there a way to apply a refund to two tickets?

If I were to go now and try to ticket myself using my refund and then hubby separately, I assume the latest prices would apply and not what I managed to get earlier?
Thanks.