mduell

United says:

• To cancel or change your MileagePlus Upgrade Award, please call your United Customer Contact Center.
• If you cancel or change your flight, you also need to call your United Customer Contact Center, as the MileagePlus Upgrade Award will not be automatically canceled or changed.
• If you request to cancel your MileagePlus Upgrade Award, any miles and associated upgrade co-pays will be refunded, though a re-credit fee may apply.

So if you have no status, $200/pax to get your miles back.

emcampbe

Using miles for an upgrade is considered an award, just like redeeming for a ticket, and is subject to the same mileage redeposit fee as that as well. So yes, you can get them back, but if you aren't a plat or above, there will be a redeposit fee, which varies by status level.

Not sure where you work or what kind of culture you have there, but if this was an approved vacation that got canceled, I'd find out if there is a policy regarding this. IMO, if the vacation was pre-approved and business reasons force you to cancel, they should probably provide reimbursement for these kind of fees. YMMV, of course. Also, if you have travel insurance, check to see what the terms are and if it would provide reimbursement for your fees - some, though certainly not all, will cover cancellation for any reason.

cerps343

I requested (and was waitlisted) for an upgrade to F using miles/copay but now see that there is one F seat available for cash upgrade only. Am I able to cancel the upgrade request and get my miles and copay back without paying the mileage redeposit fee?

I wasn't sure if that was able to be done or not since the upgrade hasn't cleared.

Thanks in advance!

Kacee

They're going to charge you the redeposit fee. It's wrong, but that's what they do.

cerps343

And there's nothing I can say or ask for besides asking if they can check with a supervisor to not pay the $200 fee? Like you said, it's pretty messed up, especially since now I'm upgrading my seat paying cash, and not trying to upgrade with miles. I would have thought I could have applied the $75 copay when I requested the upgrade toward the ~$260 for the bump up to F.

Kacee

Sure you can hope they forget to charge it or ask if they'll waive it in light of the buy-up. Just giving you a heads-up the usual rule is to charge the fee.

It's arguably the most messed up rule in the whole program.

B747SP

Well, if you buy the upgrade with cash, technically your miles+cash upgrade will not clear. As long as you do not voluntarily request a cancel of the upgrade and redeposit, after the flight they should refund you the miles+cash without a redeposit fee anyway, as if there were no upgrade cleared at all.

cerps343

Do you have direct experience with this? Before I went ahead with the buy-up, I would want to make sure this isn't just a surmising but has actually been done before.

If so, I am more than willing to just pay the cash and upgrade and not cancel the upgrade request. But I would really hate to be out several thousand miles, $75, as well as paying the cash upgrade cost.

Kacee

The cash co-pay will be refunded if you pull the upgrade. The issue is the $200 redeposit fee for the miles.

cerps343

Oh so the system would see I requested an upgrade with miles and then work on refunding that/charging me $200? So really, if I tried to buy up online, instead of charging $262, it would charge $462?

I'm really appreciating the help navigating through the technicalities/intricacies of this system. As you can probably tell, I'm new to the mileage game.

B747SP

I have not done the buy-up while waitlisting for a miles+copay upgrade. However I have cancelled a flight with a waitlisted miles+copay upgrade. After the original departure date the miles+copay got refunded without a redeposit fee.

Kacee

No. Separate transactions. You can cancel the upgrade request and your co-pay should auto-refund (though you might have to call if it doesn't). The miles will sit in never-never land until you pay a $200 redeposit fee.

I can't predict for sure what will happen if you just buy the upgrade then wait and see what happens. That's intersecting IT functions and I don't think UA knows for sure. Just be aware that it may cost you $200 to get your miles back.

Baze

Not true. Last fall I was flying PEK-SFO on a W fare, used miles and cash to request an upgrade. Day before flight it still had not cleared and I decided I wanted the extra PQM's, PQD's and PQS's so I bought up to a Z fare. Lo and behold the next morning, day of flight, suddenly the upgrade cleared even though I was already in the J cabin. And no, it was not an upgrade to GF, I looked closely. It took a call to get my miles and money back.

cerps343

Did you have to pay $200 for the mile redeposit fee? If not, I suppose that's an avenue I could take. Not cancel the mile+$ upgrade request, buy up, and then call to get back my miles+$ after the flight.

Baze

No, 1K (Platinum then) so no fee. But in this situation I don't think anyone would have to pay a fee as you are not canceling the request and sitting in coach. But I could be wrong on that account.