Trying to make a flight change and the differential is over $3000!!!
 

I don't fly United very often so I would appreciate if some of the more experienced UA flyers could give me insights into this situation.

I've booked a YYC-ORD-EWR-SJO return May 5-9 trip entirely in P (on the UA website). Turns out that my SO can now join me on this trip if I change the dates and routing which I can easily do as my business in SJO is flexible. My ticket cost CAD $1122.

I priced out YYC-ORD-EWR-SJO on May 1 returning SJO-EWR-DEN-YYC on May 6 for him at CAD $1115. The segments are in A, A, D, P, P and P respectively. So far so good. I couldn't make the change online (the flights I wanted weren't showing up), so I call UA to see what it would cost to switch my ticket over to the new dates and slightly revised itinerary to match his. I expected a $200 change fee. And since the new ticket is just $7 less than the old, I figured there would be no fare difference. Wrong! According to the Phillipines-based agent, I need to pay the $200 AND pay a fare differential of $3,046!!!! Yup, that's in addition to the $1115 that I've already paid! When I suggested that perhaps this was an error, she put me on hold while she went to her "support desk" and I have been on hold now for over 45 minutes! What do I not know? Is this fare differential legitimate? Any advice on what I should do next? Please help! Many thanks in advance for any assistance.

Suggest to rebook both the in and outbound. Your change is causing a fare break or violating some fare rule, repricing as a full fare. Or simply cancel the original ticket, and then use that money to rebook including the $200 fee then.

Sometime changes price weirdly, cancel and rebook using the cancel credit should get the results you want.

Did you have an upgrade or an -UP fare. Believe in those case it tries to maintain the cabin by booking a full fare or a true P fare, yield a more expensive fare.

This is a P fare, so not cancellable. My only option is to change and that's where I'm running into this unexpected problem.

P fares are cancellable but non-refundable. But cancel and have a credit is fine (and a change fee). You probably should use an agent.

Thank you VERY MUCH! That's what I thought -- I didn't think I would lose the entire value of the ticket just because I needed to cancel the flight -- but the agent I spoke to just kept repeating "this is not a cancellable ticket". I kept trying to clarify the difference between cancellable and refundable but I finally gave up. Appreciate your assistance!!

Call!! Don't use the website to make changes
 

Are you doing this on the web or via phone? The change process via the web isn't very robust especially (IMHO) when dealing with anything but the cheapest available fare. I suggest calling, there is no fee (beyond any applicable change fee) for making changes to a ticket via the phone. A live ticket agent will do a much better job of pricing it for you.

I think the OP was very clear this was done with an agent on the phone

You're booking in P and looking to get rebooked in three end-on-end A, D, and P fares. No surprise it's coming out a lot more.

Nah...the fare is the fare. If a new ticket really is only $1115 then it doesn't matter what the fare buckets are.

Now if there was only one seat at $1115 (and now he's got it) and now the new flight is $4k then the $3000 change fee makes sense. But otherwise if the fare is still available then the OP should be able to change into it.

And I see the OP's itinerary still available at around that price.

Sometimes you just need to hang up and call again.

Thank you all, this is exactly what I did. The next agent confirmed that all I had to do was cancel the flight and a credit would be placed on my account for 1 year from the date of purchase. The itinerary I want is still available at the $1115 price, so I am good to go. Well ... except for the 60 minutes of my life that I will never get back, spent on the phone with a useless agent!

Thank you again everyone for your help ... with hindsight, FT is where I should have started!

Not only clear, OP also mentioned the fact it was a non-US agent for some reason :-)