IAH-OIL-TRASH

That's not quite the case. No airline actually checks for Covid results before boarding a plane to Hawaii. The domestic pre-boarding health checks are few - eg. Hawaii scans temperatures of all arriving and departing passengers and Frontier scans temperatures of all boarding passengers. While most Hawaii-bound passengers probably would have taken the test to avoid a 10-day quarantine, a negative test is not actually a requirement of boarding the plane and there WILL be a non-insignificant fraction of people who have not taken the tests for various reasons - exempt crew members, certain exempt workers, returning residents who opt to quarantine, some who think they can illegally skip quarantine, etc. Additionally, we have seen some who have received a positive test get on a plane anyway.

cfischer

Is HNL-SFO lie-flat? Else that would be ground for a refund.

non-stop to connecting ... I have not gotten any pushback asking for refunds.

WineCountryUA

To clarify this, people have reported being refunded in some case on a change of seat and/or the addition of a connection. However, while once these reasons were a part of UA formal policy, there are no longer in the written policy. Hopefully agents continue processing refunds for these now unwritten reasons.

HNLbasedFlyer

If your new flight is leaving 1 hour 59 minutes before the previous nonstop - the arrival back to EWR with a connection will certainly be greater than 2 hours - which can be refunded. With the refund, you can buy a nonstop to JFK on Hawaiian - it will be more expensive, and the seat, in my opinion, inferior to UA. You can also fly Delta to ATL and connect - which has less people on the plane due to seat blocking (although the F offerings are worse than UA). Personally, I think the best option is lie-flat to SFO and lie-flat to EWR on UA

A lot of arriving passengers to Hawaii have not bothered with a Covid test (I think I read 20% don't bother) - you certainly flew on a plane with passengers to Hawaii that were not screened for Covid

Ska.tm

Sure, I meant it a little more anecdotally based on needing a negative test to avoid quarantine when landing as most people flying direct from NYC would not want to quarantine in Hawaii. Either way, 2 flights vs one flight is certainly more possible exposure for a variety of reasons.

Often1

Just to be clear, OP is absolutely entitled to a refund of the unused segments of his ticket.

The DOT rule is very clear that either a cancellation or a significant change requires the option of a refund. In this case, UA has cancelled the nonstop flight and proposed an alternative which may or may not be acceptable. But, it is the cancellation which triggers the right to a refund.

UA could, of course, stand on form and grant the refund but not agree to any other reroute.

HNLbasedFlyer

On a different note - I received today my 2nd email for a schedule change that is not mine - the dates, cities, and name is not me. Definitely log in to your account and verify flights.

jsloan

The DOT has not defined these terms, so I don't think that you can make any such blanket statement. I think we beat this horse pretty well the last time this came up.

In practice, I suspect that OP will have no problem getting a refund for this flight, if that's the desired outcome. Getting put onto HA instead may or may not be possible; I'm guessing probably not, but it probably depends upon how persuasive OP is. Selecting any other one-stop UA routing is certainly an option also.

garykung

The DOT does say that:

https://www.transportation.gov/indiv...ection/refunds

The only problem is the DOT has not exactly said how the refund should be handled. That's up to the airline's interpretation.

In short - I agree that OP is entitled to a partial refund. However, the exact amount of refund varies based on how OP proceeds.

jsloan

Please, can we not do this again?

It's on the very page that you linked:


They also haven't defined what counts as a 'canceled flight,' but based on other DOT precedents, a flight has to be on the schedule to be canceled; a flight that's been removed from the schedule cannot be canceled because it no longer exists.

No, actually, the refund procedures are well-documented. When paid by credit card, UA has 7 days to provide a refund to the original form of payment after a request has been validated.

Sorry, that makes no sense. Either the unused coupons will be refunded or they won't be. If they're refunded, OP will get back the fare allocated to those coupons, plus taxes, fees, and any optional purchases (e.g., pre-paid luggage or Economy Plus). For an involuntary refund, this will be calculated on a half-round-trip basis, but that doesn't necessarily mean that OP would receive half of the original fare. It could be more or less than half, depending upon the fares that were used for each journey.

If the OP accepts a re-routing, no refund is due, even though the re-routed itinerary would have been less expensive at the time of purchase.

There is no way to proceed which would result in a different calculation for the refund.

WineCountryUA

No, there are other problems
The DOT does not make clear if a schedule change with new flight numbers is a cancellation or not. This is the OPs case. Many have opinions on this but the DOT does not clearly handle this case. UA (and many other airlines) clearly takes the position is is not a cancellation per se. The DOT has not disagreed.

Often1

O yee of little faith

The requirement of a refund stems from a 2011 determination that DOT's Title 49 authority to penalize "unfair & deceptive" conduct covers the conduct. The two Notices issued by DOT in March and April 2020 were merely reminders to air carriers of the existence of the rule. Key here is the discussion of the specific circumstances under discussion, e.g. an offer of a rerouting.

I do know that at least the larger US card issuers are sustaining chargebacks in short order for this. That tends to cut off litigation because there are few who will sue when they have an easy remedy through their card issuer.

Enhancing Airline Passenger Protections, 76 Fed. Reg. 23110-01, at 23129 (Apr. 25, 2011) (“We reject . . . assertions that carriers are not required to refund a passenger's fare when a flight is cancelled if the carrier can accommodate the passenger with other transportation options after the cancellation. We find it to be manifestly unfair for a carrier to fail to provide the transportation contracted for and then to refuse to provide a refund if the passenger finds the offered rerouting unacceptable (e.g., greatly delayed or otherwise inconvenient) and he or she no longer wishes to travel.”)

Ska.tm

Thanks for all the good info here, I really appreciate the responses.

Well, I did not have high hopes with united's response but they crushed even my lowest expectations. It took over an hour on the phone just to speak to a “supervisor” who made mistakes and gave me wrong information like telling me they would refund my entire ticket until I asked her to triple check it and sure enough, it would be only a partial refund which is less than half the cost of the original ticket.
They offered no other accommodation or compensation. I am thoroughly disgusted with them. Managers are “ not taking phone calls or emails” and the only way to get “customer care” is to go to united.com/feedback and hope for a response.

I am trying to figure out my next move.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

You did take the outbound, yes? The EWR-HNL portion of the ticket may have been originally the more expensive of the two legs. Round-trip tickets are rarely the sum of two equally-priced segments (plus taxes/fees).

jsloan

It's entirely possible that this is correct. That's what would happen if your outbound fare were more expensive than your return fare.

If you'd like somebody to give an opinion, post the date of the original transaction, the travel dates in both directions, and the fare basis codes, which you can find if you view the fare rules using the link on United.com. If you can't find the fare basis code, use the fare class from the receipt, which is a single letter (something like K, L, S, or T for economy, and P, Z, or D for business / first class) -- that'll be less accurate but it's easier to find.

What did you expect? What did you ask for?

That's certainly your prerogative, but you're still going to have to deal with them long enough to get a solution.

The chances are excellent that they'll respond to an email, but (a) probably not quickly and (b) likely not to your satisfaction. And I don't know that a manager, if you could reach one, would be any more helpful; it really depends upon what you're trying to get them to do.