Refund and linking tickets questions
 

I have a couple of questions that hopefully you all can answer.

I have an upcoming flight on March 15th.

MAD - FRA (on LH) dep. 1330 and arr. 1605
FRA - SFO (on UA) dep. 1725 and arr. 2105

This was booked through United and yesterday they told me to call them. It turns out Lufthansa cancelled the MAD - FRA segment. Lufthansa does fly from MAD to FRA two other times that day, but neither worked with my schedule. I asked and United agreed to simply remove the first segment from my ticket. I will make my own way to FRA and still take the long-haul.

1)The agent mentioned that I can apply for a refund only once the ticket has been flown. Can anyone point me to a thread that has some data points about this type of refund? The United.com/refund page just says "... refund will depend on several variables ..."

2)I have a further flight on March 15th with United from SFO to LAS, my true destination. This is a separate ticket. Is there any value in connecting or linking the tickets?

Thank you!

have no idea on the refund portion -, but I’d expect very little to none. They will probably base it on historical fare of FRA-SFO, which may actually be higher than MAD-SFO, or they may break down the segment value (the same way they do for PQP accrual) and refund whatever portion that is. Could be in the single digits.

as for ‘linking’ the tickets - there would certainly be value in doing it…if it were possible. It’s not. They can ‘link’ it in the form of a note they can put in the PNR, but that’s all manual stuff which really only has an effect if an agent bothers to read it, and has zero affect from an automation standpoint. If FRA-SFO is late, for example, UA has no obligation to accommodate you on a later flight to LAS - note in the PNR or not. Less of an issue without change fees these days, though still a potential problem as making a change due to late arrival, for example, will still leave the cost on you for any increase in fare on your new segment. If you wanted to go to LAS and have full protection - the way to do that would have been to buy a ticket to LAS in the first place.

this might be a good place to note that it might be worth checking to see if it’s worth canceling the itineraries you have and seeing if booking MAD-LAS on a single PNR might be worth it. That would get you full protection. Perhaps there are other options that work with your budget/schedule like MAD-EWR-LAS.

2) There's no such thing in any meaningful, machine-read way, so no.

Thank you both! It is a business-class ticket, so hopefully more than a single digit amount will be refunded. Regardless, I've set a reminder to post again in a couple months when I find out.

Fares for much of Europe to SFO, do not vary that much. There may be little or no fare difference originating in FRA vs MAD. If anything MAD may be a little cheaper.

From post #2 and #5, it seems that United will be thinking in terms of the fare difference between MAD - FRA - SFO and FRA - SFO. I can definitely believe that the price difference would be nil. Unfortunately, I was thinking I would be refunded somewhere in the range of a one-way (business class) ticket from MAD - FRA. I should have asked more questions on the phone with United. This could be an expensive mistake.

Can you re-route e.g. MAD-ZRH-SFO? You are likely indeed not going to see much here, if anything.

I ended up cancelling the flight, so I'll never know what the refund amount would have been. I was expecting a travel credit, but the agent refunded back to my credit card. Thank you all for your comments!

The original cancelled segment made your entire original ticket refund eligible.