findark

The actual refund issue is as clear as mud, and United has a history of inconsistency in applying it.

"the amount of refund will be as follows: ... the lowest applicable fare at the time the ticket was purchased" doesn't even make sense as a sentence.

The reasonable amount would be the difference between the fare paid and the equivalent fare in the lower cabin that was offered on the date of purchase. The issue is that United doesn't know what that is, and indeed it cannot be retroactively determined because historical inventory is not kept. All that can be said with certainty is that it is at least the route fare differential.

On top of that, although the CoC provides for a "prorated value" of a fare component on a single segment of the routing, it fails to provide any mechanism for such proration. Whether it should be ratably by distance, or by the ratio of full fares, or by some other method is left unspecified.

HNLbasedFlyer

If I'm reading the original post correctly - and I may not be - they flew from LAX to Albany in F and the return had the downgrade. Just doing dummy bookings on united.com where I book F to Albany via IAD and Economy on the way back is a price difference in the $250 range versus F both directions.

uanj

As a long time GS I can tell you in this situation my experience has been they will only ask the FC passenger to move to Y if they are non-rev.

When I miss a connection and get told FC is booked for 1-2 days, I have to quickly decide to fly UA in Y or FC on another carrier. UA has not always offered rebooking on another airline but when I ask they also have never said no (apart from Smisek merger days). So in my experience be ready to ask.

I have never felt the calculation for the fare downgrade was right, but had no way of telling for sure,

I think the deceptive part here is how they calculate the fare differential. Most of us book cheapest first available and expect the fare difference with cheapest economy available at the time of the booking. UA arbitrarily choosing to compare to an E fare does not seem right.

Rule 27 part C says if the fare was upgraded the only refund is the way the upgrade was paid for: points, miles, dollars, etc... Does this mean for YBM automatic upgrades there is no compensation? (And thanks for posting this, Ari!)

RK23

I just had the same issue. Booked a domestic first class Z and equipment swap led to Y. The updated pricing on Y was $3 cheaper than the Z I booked so I opted for a full refund and decided to rebook on another carrier due to time constraints.

TBD

Should we start saving a screenshot of the availability at booking? If I book a Z-fare on this flight (below) and get downgraded, then it's very clear up front that the reference for comparison should be the lowest (non-award) economy fare - L. It is possible to look retroactively in the GDS to see exactly what the fare difference was on the day of booking between Z and L.

Available fare classes: J9 JN9 C9 D8 Z4 ZN4 P0 PN0 PZ0 IN0 I0 Y9 YN9 B9 M9 E9 U9 H9 HN9 Q9 V9 W9 S9 T9 L9 K0 G0 N9 XN9 X2

Unfortunately, this isn't better at other airlines. I flew AA recently ANC-DFW-MCO. Inbound flight to ANC was late (AA's fault), which ultimately made me misconnect in DFW. I was rebooked in economy despite paying for F. Fortunately, the GA in DFW got me a F seat, but I was ready to read the riot act to Doug Parker if I was stuck in economy with a $20 refund....

Aussienarelle

This is what the DOT should be looking at.

JimInOhio

Question for OP:

Were you not protected by UA on the next flight out of IAD? If that's the case, it's a disturbing development for 1K status (IMHO). For quite a while, it seems that if I ever was in danger of mis-connecting, UA proactively made a backup reservation for me on the next flight.

dinoscool3

I thought there's been no protection for a while now. I remember finding out a few years ago when I tried to have a phone agent protect me, and she was very apologetic, but said they don't do that anymore. I haven't tried again since then.

jsloan

That isn't how that works.

If you want to keep this information, you'd screenshot the search results, including the price being offered, not the inventory. The inventory doesn't tell you anything about applicable fares on that purchase date.

There is zero reason to believe that OP didn't get the correct refund -- or, at least, there's not nearly enough information available to make that assertion, as we don't know whether this was a round-trip or one-way ticket, and we don't know whether the refund amount listed was per-person or total. OP claims they never would have paid X amount for economy travel, but most first-class fares, including ALB-LAX (not via EWR) are priced on a differential basis: the fare for F depends upon the fare for Y. If the F fare is expensive, it's often -- not solely -- because the fare for Y on those same flights was expensive.

RK23

The representatives on the phone wouldn't budge and said they could fly me out on the next flight that was 6 hours later and that they could only offer fare difference based on the current date, which had Y repriced to be nearly identical to Z just over a week later. To make matters worse, the app/web wanted me to pay to change my seat. I didn't even bother asking if they would have waved that cost. The flight is also nearly empty both up front and in the back. Maybe 4 people booked right now!

I might file a DOT complaint if my response from United is unsatisfactory.

mduell

Fare class availability doesn't mean there's any applicable fare at booking time.

DELee

Cancel and rebook.

David

zombietooth

I've been protected 3 times already in October due to delayed departures. In fact, I think UA's on-time performance these last few months must be suffering badly because I've been on over 10 badly delayed flights in that time. Two times, they booked me on another UA flight in F, and the last time, they booked me in Y. On the last one, I found a DL one-way in F and cancelled my last UA segment for refund.

MBS MillionMiler

To me, this falls in the same category as trying to go standby with a 'paid first class ticket'. I've had fare classes a high as C, but usually D...And any time I try to get on a standby list, they tell me I can only stand by for coach, because "you bought a coach ticket with a free upgrade to first". At no point in the purchase process, nowhere in the fare description (yes, the puzzle of the extended booking code might be Q4F3B7XN), but not even semi-savvy travelers would look at those seemingly random assembly of numbers/letters and think, "Oh, I have a coach Q fare!". It's. Literally. Stated. Nowhere. It offers me a few columns, usually Economy, Economy (refundable) and First. I select the first class fare, full stop.

(The two times this happened to me this year, I had to try gate standby because not even the app gave me the option, despite plenty of first class seats available INCLUDING my front-facing fare class (C or D)--but because apparently my underlying "Q" (or whatever) isn't available, they won't offer me the F seat. That, to me, is complete B.S. and I'm contemplating a DOT complaint.

MSPeconomist

Doesn't EF show historical fares?