Very customer friendly changes.

Though this cuts into the benefits of being a high tier elite -free confirmed SDC was one of the benefits I valued the most.

You might want to reword that.

Bravo! A change that is extremely Customer Oriented.

Another 1K/GS perk gone. Will be impossible what used to be easy

Wow, this is kind of crazy and you wonder, other than the "If your new flight costs less, you’ll be able to change for free but will not receive a refund of the fare difference." and given UA's past good news/bad news tactics, what is the bad news that is to come.

Award change fee is also gone for domestic and redeposit fee is also gone if refunded > 30 days in advance for all tickets.

I am definitely glad I did not try to do mileage runs to get to 1K last year.

Let's see how "permanent" this is.

It was obvious with the waivers that they had no revenue from the change fees and competitive analysis likely revealed forward bookings were lost to wn when they looked at the historical downtown/shock periods. To say it is only customer friendly is half right. The change fees originated out of scarcity. They are now vanishing in a sea of surplus seats. Supply and demand

How?

As someone that already had that perk I hate the change because it will now be impossible to make that standby when you need it.

Ok who took over Kirby’s body?

seriously though.. amazed to see this, but happy. Hopefully seen as a good way to build back trust and loyalty to buy tickets. Think of All the forum posts lately on following nuances of change fee stuff

because before when it was costing money for most, it was easy do make last minute changes or get GS to rebook you. Now there will be longer lists.

Perhaps GS agent were waiving change fees but that was not happening for 1Ks
And if you worry about standby list, GS will be at the top and the others will not affect GS options

And Gold and Plat had free SDC already.

Good news, glad to see UA taking the initiative here...will be nice to see a “UA does [ x ], when will DL follow” posted by our friends over on the DL forum.

...and there it is! https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delt...ta-follow.html

Well said. Also would note Alaska, the donut-hole-airline [read: too big to be small and too small to be big] effectively offered this for their mid tier and above elites.
Said something similar back in February prior to the full on awareness of what we were in for with COVID. Basically it boils down to a macro demand problem that the carriers have no tools to address.

edited to add - https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...ack-swans.html

Yeah...but on the whole how will the average customer benefit more: getting a residual voucher back or paying $200 for a change fee.

Let me say it another way: looking back to 2019 - the last “normal” year - what amount do you think was higher: 1. Change fees, or 2. Residual values. I’m not saying there’s no nuance here, but for the average customer this will produce an positive outcome the majority (note: not ALL) the time.

I’ll also note change fees are were a material source of income for the carrier. Don’t know what will be done to offset this - and to be fair, maybe UA doesn’t know either - but ALL carriers right now have a massive revenue problem and sooner or later this will have to be addressed. Maybe it’s higher fares, maybe it’s more subsidies, maybe [ → they ← ] will change monetary policy/reset the currency...I really don’t know. But sooner or later the economic reality of operating any airline will have to be balanced. I just hope we can find a path forward that allows the carrier to operate with pay/service levels/benefits/products that work for all...but for now, a win is a win and glad to see UA making the best of a bad situation.

One would assume standby lists would retain a status component.

It will be interesting to see how this impacts UA and WN stocks.

So, does the UA system allow multiple trips in 1 PNR? For example, LAX-EWR-LAX-EWR-LAX? If your new trip costs less, can you add additional segments / trips so you don't lose the residual value?

His video also said route structure and more to come. Maybe they are going to have more of those focus-city type of seasonal routes?

Well done, United! I'm sure in the current circumstance this benefits United as well as customers. Nice job leading with a shared win for customers and company. Kudos on leaving the other airlines scrambling a bit during the hardest times the industry has known, not an easy task for sure!

As a 1K:

The no change fee is nice, but the lack of credit for reduction of fares could be costly.

Otherwise the same day standby is something I already have and and I hope they prioritize it by status, not time of request, fare class, ticket price paid or the position of the moon and stars.

As a 1K, United has offered me little for just passing the reduced 1K 2020 threshold besides some PP. If I’m going to change airline loyalty, now is probably the time to do it. I’ve got 16 months to earn status with another airline or Airline alliance before my 1K benefits expire.

United has traditionally tried to inspire low level status fliers to move up....many times at the expense of their premium customers.