gpen1827

Got it, thank you!

mileshound

I am confused about if all redeposit fees have been eliminated. I am seeing conflicting info.

I have a flight on UA metal. It originates in Paris and goes to US. I booked it today. I have no status.

If I am reading it correctly, the fare rule states there is a $125 redeposit fee if I cancel less than 30 days from the flight. I have read elsewhere that exists only if I am a no show. The UA website says no fee if cancelled anytime before flight.

I know non US origination had different rules at one time.

What is the actual rule?

jsloan

No fee if canceled prior to departure. No-show fee, regardless of status, if not canceled prior to departure. Origin is not relevant.

https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly...ticketing.html

WineCountryUA

Yes depending on when the fare rule was generated, it may be out-of-date. The website is the present policy.

A fee for some for booking and a no show redeposit fee for everyone

spacemanvt

is there any time limit to cancel a flight or you can cancel up to the departure time?

jsloan

You can cancel anytime before you've been marked a no-show for the flight. I'd aim for at least 60 minutes prior to departure if possible to avoid complications.

emcampbe

also would add on that if you do not meet any of the pre-flight deadlines, your ticket will be canceled at that point. So if you try to cancel just prior to departure, but haven’t checked in by the 45 minute deadline (for most flights), you’ll likely find you’ve already been considered a no-show and your ticket will already have been canceled.

technically, if you’ve met those deadlines, you can cancel up to the time the GA closes the flight without you on it. That might be up to 15 minutes before departure (domestic) or 30 minutes (international), or sometimes even a few minutes past departure. Obviously, assume the latter based on your own sense of risk (I wouldn’t try it).

The closest I’ve ever come was within about 10 minutes of departure. A few hours before departure, I found out I was going to need to cancel my trip, but I noticed that the flight was showing as full and was Y0, so I decided to go to the airport to see if I might be able to VDB, as it seemed there might be a good chance. So went all the way to the gate, volunteered myself, but during boarding, it became clear they weren’t going to need anyone, so I canceled then and there.

BelmontRef

To my knowledge, no-show processing runs only once and that is several minutes after actual departure. While missing the check-in deadline inhibits customer self-checkin, the reservation is still there and the customer can still be checked-in by a CSR.

blackavar

Hi --
Recently had a points flight that we needed to cancel, found the cancellation policy to be excellent as we ended up with full refund of points. Honestly better than travel insurance.

Now thinking about trying to rebook the trip we had planned for next year...found an option for a flight that works for us on a partner flight...was wondering if we needed to cancel again, is the redeposit policy as generous?

This would be a united miles, booked via united website for a partner flight.

jsloan

Yes. The MileagePlus redeposit policy for award travel is identical whether you choose UA flights or partner flights.

beltway

ne plus ultra

Surface Interval

Have done that a couple times. Did not ever get the bump - karma, ehh?

Back (way back) when I had UA status I had a freind who traveled frequently for biz who was 1k, we would play the book a couple award biz tickets game, where I would cancel a few minutes before boarding to wash out the TOD upgrades. Worked pretty well.

emcampbe

For sure.

interestingly enough, not getting a VDB arguably wasn’t the worst part of that whole transaction. This was back in the day of $200 domestic change fees. About an hour after canceling, my connecting flight was canceled. So the FFC I got had $200 deducted when I changed to a new itinerary, which wouldn’t have happened if I would have been able to wait another hour or so to cancel. So that was something else in addition to karma.

nfox90

I have a flight that is LAX-EWR-JNB-CPT, all on one ticket but the last leg is on SA Airlink. I booked with miles but used the wrong CC to pay for the taxes/fees. I want to rebook using a different card to pay for the taxes/fees since it has better travel protections. The flight is the same amount of miles right now, but when I called in, the agent said there was no way to put a hold on the fare due to the partner leg, and I would have to cancel, wait anywhere from immediately to 72 hours for the miles to credit and then hope the price hasn't changes before I rebook. Is this correct? Any other way to accomplish what I'm trying to do?

jsloan

Yes, that is correct. However, in most cases the refund will be instant, and if it is not, you can contact the MileagePlus Service Center directly and they can push it through: https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly...tact-info.html