yes…miles back to the account (instantly…though you have to look a bit harder than you should to see it, as the line item is backdated to the same day you booked it), taxes and fees refunded to card, which takes a few days.

of course, there can be glitches…occasionally you hear of someone where the miles don’t go back right away like they should, for example. A call should fix that if that happens to you for some reason.

Thank you both. I plan on booking two one ways. Seems like I can now book at the current rate and if the mileage redemption rate drops in the future, I can cancel and rebook and save the difference in miles.

I have a basic question but hopefully someone can give me a quick answer.

I see on some web sites people saying that there are no more change or cancellation fees for UA award tickets

https://upgradedpoints.com/travel/ai...n-change-fees/
but on this major popular web site it says UA award tickets have no change or cancellation fees only if originating from the U.S

which is correct?
I need to book award travel from Manila to Singapore
I'm a general member only.. can I change date or cancel without any fees?

The cart and statements above replicate UAs current rules/policy, which are here: https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly...ticketing.html.

No change or redeposit fees anymore. Origin/destination does not matter. In fact, I've got an award ticket BRU-LHR I'm planning on canceling - it was a backup in case stuff was still bad in France which is really where we are supposed to be.

The other site is out of date, fortunately you came to FT :D

The first step UA took was no change fee ex-USA, and left change fees for elsewhere -- but UA then temporarily place a waiver on those non-USA change fees and a while back drop all change fees. So it has been a bit of a moving target unless you tracked it careful, which we do on FT. These site the try to do everything frequently get out of sync,

oh man thank you so much.. your reply helped untangle the mystery!

oh wait.. real quick a follow-up question.

No cancellation fees.. even last minute? Say for example, I spent 6k to book a domestic ANA flight with UA miles. I can cancel last minute, even same day and get the miles back with no fees? Just checking. That seems like a very positive change for flyers as needed.

Correct as long as it's not so last minute as that you've been marked as a no-show for the flight. 4 hours before your flight? You're fine.

Same-day, yes.

Last-minute — as long as you do it before you’re marked a no-show for the flight, again, yes. (If you’re late, it’s $125 to reinstate the miles). In practice, for a partner-operated flight I’d recommend canceling at least an hour prior to departure.

awesome thanks a lot! I had a domestic JP flight I was about 90% sure about.. this gives me confident to go ahead and book anyways. Cheers!

What is United's Policy about reinstating miles due to cancellation?
 

If I book an Internation flight in June and need to cancel, is there a fee for reinstating the miles into my Mileage Plus account? Suppose its less than 30 days prior to departure? Are taxes returned to my credit card or placed in a travel bank? Thanks,
SBT

There are no fees for cancelling / redepositing miles prior to departure and taxes are 100% refunded to your original form of payment.
Options Available for Award Tickets (united.com)

I know it's contrary to what the website says but today I called an agent to book a TPE->JFK on EVA partner award over the phone because I ran into an error message online (which is a whole other story) but when they read me the terms and conditions to agree to, they said a $120 fee would be assessed to cancel the flight within 31 days of departure to get a refund of the taxes (~$33) and to redeposit the miles rather than receive a "credit" for miles that had to be used within 1 year of booking date. Since that clearly doesn't jive with what's on the United website about award (even with Star Alliance partners) cancellations ($0 fee to redeposit)--does anyone have recent experience with cancelling an international flight on a partner within 31 days of departure on United and whether everything was refunded automatically?

yes. Is last week recent enough?

had booked BRU-LHR on Brussels for this past Thursday, even though the plan was to be in Paris, not Brussels, and go back on existing itinerary, but wanted to have a backup in case a bigger strike happened again and we needed to change plans. Canceled the award for Thursday departure on Tuesday once we were in Paris - miles went back into account immediately and taxes were fully refunded - not sure exactly how long that took but it was probably in 2, maybe 3 days.

UA Award Ticket Refund
 

Hello all,

I am trying to use my UA Mileage to book an award ticket (also considering AA) for early next year. I know it is too early, which is why I am wondering if the redeeming miles award ticket is fully refundable? If I book now and maybe change the plan and cancel it in the future, am I getting all miles back, as well as those fees/tax, I mean both UA and AA?

I feel the cancellation policy on the UA Website, and this forum are a bit confusing, that's why I use this thread to ask this question. Hope this is not too stupid.

Thanks!

Yes, all UA awards are fully refundable, provided you cancel prior to being marked a no-show (for simplicity's sake, canceling at least an hour prior to scheduled departure is sufficient). Your miles will be redeposited and your taxes and fees will be refunded to your original form of payment.