unitedwildcat

Can you look at how many PQP you got on the outbound and figure it out that way? Not very scientific but should give you a sense of how UA’s calculation worked

jsloan

Your expectation was incorrect.


No; they won't be able to tell you.

Yes, you are correct.

You haven't provided enough information to be able to give you a definitive answer, but I can tell you in general how it should have been computed:

(a) taxes are computed on a line-item basis, but in general, I'd expect nearly all taxes on an Europe -> US round-trip (w/ or w/o an open jaw) to be on the outbound segment. The itemized taxes for the return are probably $15-20.
(b) everything else depends upon the fare you had in each direction. The distance of the flight is entirely irrelevant. You'd have been charged half of the roundtrip fare from XXX-EWR plus half of the fare from XXX-SFO (not SFO-XXX), where XXX is your origin. However, you'd also have to take the inventory and fare rules into account.

It's entirely possible that you had a much cheaper return leg than your outbound leg. In that case, a 36% refund could be exactly correct.

If you'd like a more thorough accounting, you'd need to post your purchased itinerary, flight dates, purchase date, and the fare basis codes, which you can find on your itinerary page -- if they haven't already disappeared. They may have, in which case the fare classes from your original receipt can give an approximation.

Due to the advent of https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...ing-pilot.html , it's not possible to get an exact answer anymore, but people can get close.

If you'd like a first-order approximation, just the cities and fare buckets will suffice.

That's an excellent suggestion, although I'd go one further: Ignore what you actually received -- unless you go back and find you were shorted -- and look at the breakdown on the original receipt.

dap891

This is a great idea, thanks. My outbound PQPs / original fare paid comes to 67%, so it looks like the refund I got was at least roughly right if not generous.

Given the above, I don't think it's necessary to check further, but I wanted to thank you for the generous and very interesting (nerd face) reply. Hopefully it is of help to someone in the future!

Wx4caster

i have also noticed a marked reduction in schedule changes this year, although I was impacted during last Friday's update resulting in a 0600 departure time, which I am not keen to accept.

According to the one-time change conditions due to a schedule change impacting your trip, you have the option to make a one-time change to your flight(s) at no cost. Your new flight must meet these conditions:

• Your new travel date is not more than 1 day before or 1 day after the original date
• Your departure and destination airports remain the same
• Your new ticket is in the same cabin and booking class as the original ticket
• Your new flight is operated by United or United Express

Unfortunately, the best option for us did not have 3 seats in E+ (and this if for a flight still 2 months out!). So I called the 1K line and asked to just move our first segment to one day earlier. We would overnight at the connecting point at our expense, and continue on as originally scheduled the following day.

The great 1K agent replied, "I see the change. This option sounds like a go to me! Let me just call my ticketing desk to get this taken care of".

After some time of wait, she came back and was very apologetic that the ticket desk was insistent they would have to charge me an additional $100 pp for this change, even though she also thought I was within the rules and it is was a very minor change. Has anyone else tried forcing an overnight connection as a result of a schedule change? I went back and attempted to make the change myself online, and the site tried to charge me $80pp.

DELee

Wait for the next schedule change?

David

cfischer

Is this an intercontinental itinerary? 24 hours connection ok? If not then baking in a stop-over is not covered by a flight change provision.

Wx4caster

It is domestic. Ordinarily, I would agree that a >4 hour stopover is a fare break. But I would think there would be some flexibility for a involuntary schedule change, particularly when the change I am requesting appears to meet every condition stipulated for the free flight change:

• Your new travel date is not more than 1 day before or 1 day after the original date (check)
• Your departure and destination airports remain the same (check, ultimately my departure and destination are the same, but there is a new stopover point in the middle - and I guess therein is the rub)
• Your new ticket is in the same cabin and booking class as the original ticket (check)
• Your new flight is operated by United or United Express (check)

cfischer

you can’t break the ticket rules and add a stopover for free. That only works during irops. You can get any other re-routing but not having 3 E+ seats available doesn’t sound like a good argument tbh.

Wx4caster

For a 7-8+ hour flight, E+ is absolutely essential (if not F). A good argument for what, United disrupting my schedule? The free change conditions didn't say a good argument was needed.

In any event, while I understand what a legal stopover is (and isn't), this could all be made clearer if they updated the language of the free change conditions. If United said something like the following, I would not have even asked.

• Your new travel date is not more than 1 day before or 1 day after the original date, with no more than 4 hours at any connecting airport(s) for domestic travel

cfischer

Should they also add that you can't change IAD-EWR for IAD-HNL-EWR ???

I think it is generally understood that you need to remain within the bounds of the ticket and the conditions therein.

whitethunder

Ahh thought all these non-notifying schedule changes were behind UA years ago but just notice a trip to TPE and a trip to NRT now both have un-makeable connections for me

Still no emails, just was on flyertalk and saw the sticky and decided to check some reservations, I guess I will go back to mid-2010's UA and check every few days after I call the 1K desk....

tr3k

Is there a way to use a minor schedule change (15 min) to somehow waive the change fee? Need to postpone the flight a few days.

jsloan

Most UA fares no longer have change fees to waive. If your fare does have a change fee -- some international fares originating outside of the US do -- then you might be able to get it waived.

Are you actually asking about getting a fare difference waived? Even a major schedule change won't generally allow you to waive a fare difference when trying to move a flight a few days. For a 15-minute change, I can't imagine an agent agreeing.

N104UA

The exception to this would be if the 15min change puts you close to or under MCT. However, you might be able to get it moved to the next day but unless the flight the next day or two are sold out I doubt they will move it by a few days without a fare difference

tr3k

It's a flight originating outside US (and not UA itself). There is no fare difference (or even small credit) to move a few days later. Unfortunately there is a $300 change fee, which I'd like to avoid (but would prefer not to fight with UA) - so trying to figure out what the rules are.

P.S. And to answer my own question, UA customer service told me it's a "no". A minor schedule change is not sufficient to waive the change fee. Unfortunate.