Is it bad to frequently cancel flights within 24 hours?
 

I have probably cancelled 10 flights with UA within 24 hours of booking them in the last 6 months. Am I running a risk of UA flagging my account or worse?

EDIT: Perhaps relevant for every flight I have cancelled I have probably taken close to 2 flights.

Highly doubtful

I think you face more jeopardy if you cancel a lot of flights within 24 hours of flying them rather than with 24 hours of reserving them. There was a thread here a few months ago about a Central American gentleman whose MP account was confiscated because he reserved a lot of refundable tickets for a traveling companion to allay his flying anxiety, and only upon getting to the airport would it be decided whether the companionship was required.

Agree - I do that on a monthly basis. I did get a call recently about too many fare locks to a destination (with different origination dates) and they said I had to cancel some of them as I was tying up too many seats..... And they said if I didn't cancel some of them that UA was going to cancel them all - and no I didn't get any money back....

I think there was a poster here who was GS and got kicked out of the mileageplus program for doing just this; but I can't find the thread. Can anyone help me out here ?

That thread was about booking award tickets for his wife and then cancelling them constantly IIRC....

Not just constantly, but literally as the plane was boarding.

So that she could walk him to the gate.

Well...for a recent cancellation within 24 hours, I had to call in - since I could not separate myself from my flying partner online (he was flying eventually, I was not). Some interesting discussion ensued regarding reseating my partner out of E+. I'll spare the details here.

Suffice it to say, it is interesting what UA IT does in reaction to certain activities by its members. And what people do (even if not to game the system) is eventually noticed by UA.

Heck I've cancelled award tickets AFTER the plane took off. It amazed me that UA would let me do that, but I try not to do it too often....

It's a violation of the COC to book a ticket without the intent to fly it. So, how does UA determine intent to fly? That's the question.

I would surmise and it's just surmise, that UA cares a whole lot less about cancellations within 24 hours for a time down the road than the GS who had his MP account closed because he cancelled refundable F tickets at the gate.

The same for "impossible" reservations (multiple fare locks). At least they called.

It's all about inventory spoilage. If this starts to affect the bottom line, you can bet UA will care a whole lot.

The thing that makes the 24 hour after booking item different than some of the other examples is that is a legal requirement (if the booking is made more than 7 days in advance). While United has the right to cancel a person's mileage plus account for any reason, it would raise quite a bit of questions if it would happen because of someone exercising (perhaps abusing, which I don't think the OP is doing) a right governed by a federal regulation, as opposed to abusing airline policy on refundable tickets and such.

I would draw a distinction booking a trip that you may be taking and the cancelling the next day, and rebooking for the same flight, you're really only tying up 1 seat that you're most likely using.

As opposed to booking a flight leaving Monday, another Tuesday, and another Wednesday, with the same O/D and then cancelling 2 of them as then you're tying up multiple seats with 2 of them you couldn't possibly take.

Or booking a flights all leaving Monday EWR/LAX, EWR/MIA, EWR/MSY again you're tying up at least 2 seats you can't possibly travel on.

The first scenario I don't think would be a huge deal (unless repeated an obnoxious amount of times), the other two I could see UA taking offense with impossible itineraries being booked.

In my example I had three fare locks for my flight next week to LHR - one departing next Saturday arriving Saturday night, one departing Saturday night arriving Sunday, one departing Sunday arriving Sunday night - all had the same return date. I have a trip Friday morning to Hong Kong and didn't know my return date until recently so I couldnt choose my departure to London - if UA doesn't want to let me use fare lock then they should prohibit it - but I'm growing really tired of dealing with UA when I follow the rules and still get screwed....

And yes the flight to Hong Kong and back is on UA lol....