Large schedule change - automatically accepted?
 

United sent me two e-mails within a period of 4 minutes: one announcing a significant schedule change (arrival 7 hours later than planned, a 2 hour connection became a 12 hour connection) and an eticket receipt for the new itinerary. On the website the trips appears to be confirmed and there is no option for no-cost changes or cancel (unlike schedule changes in the past, even when the schedule change was minor).

I want to either change for free to a more convenient schedule or cancel the itinerary for a full refund. Do you have any advice? I'm guessing that if i call the agent will see the new itinerary as accepted and it will be a battle...

No, agent can see original itinerary even if the waiver didn't get applied to reservation as it should have. So there should be no pushback if you want a change.

Some agents do get confused, but if you catch one of those when you call, politely end and HUCA.

I've had this happen to me, and there weren't any problems. It went something like "Hello, there was a schedule change affecting XXX flight, and the itinerary that I've been rebooked on doesn't work for me because of a 12 hour connection. I would like to be reaccomodated on flight YYY". I've also had a lot of success with the online chat for schedule change fixes.

No, it will not be a problem as it does not matter if it was accepted.

Thanks all for the reassuring replies!

anecdotally, it does not hurt to look at what other flights are available if you want to suggest a specific routing to the agent as well

This.

Come prepared to ask for specific flights to change to. That will give you the best chance of success without having to HUCA.

In the end I cancelled the booking via chat (found a better alternative on another airline). It was straightforward.

Any chance this works with Award tickets? (I'm going to try anyway once I find out the tolerance level of my family members.)

I have award tickets in business for 6 (full JN!) but it involves a partner so that will complicate matters. The schedule change increased the layover from 5 to 8+ hours on the partner. The partner flight is in Y, so maybe that allows more flexibility. (He says, hopefully!)

You will be allowed a change without being charged any difference of miles, but there has to be award space available on the flight that you want. For UA-operated flights, you have access to last-seat inventory, but for partner flights you don't.

I figured this was the case. Unfortunately, we have 1 or 2 nervous flyers who want to fly as part of the group, so this limits our options if partner inventory is limited. (As it is, they already are in Y on the partner flight, not that it matters much in Europe.) I'm in Europe and I just don't feel like dealing with this issue to sort it out with them right now, especially on Super Bowl Weekend.

I've had significant schedule changes on codeshare flights that have not triggered any free change options.

Is there a partner or codeshare flight involved? If that’s the case, that may have triggered the ticket being reissued.

New update: I got the refund, but part of it in form of travel credits (that I used to book the flight originally). I thought that in case of major schedule changes I was entitled to a full cash refund. Is this the case?

You're entitled to a refund to the original form of payment. If the original form of payment was a travel credit, then that's what you get back.