Cancel, no show, or modify ticket, what to do
 

My wife and I are flying to Germany tomorrow on United with basic economy tickets. Her ticket has her returning from Stockholm in August, mine is returning from Germany in September. There is a good chance she can now stay on with me until September and would like to fly home with me on my flight, Munich to SMF.
If she modifies her return leg to match mine, a whole series of price escalations kick in due to the basic economy starting point. 1) change fee of 299, 2) can only change to regular economy, and 3) the underlying ticket price has gone up significantly since the original purchase. All told, looks like around a 1500 total cost to change.
It looks like a better approach would be to not take the Stockholm flight home and purchase a fresh roundtrip ticket Munich to SMF with the outbound leg on my flight, with a cost of only 776. The question then is, what to do about the Stockholm flight? According to a united person we talked to, if we formally cancelled this return leg, there would be a cancellation fee of some sort, iirc it was 149 dollars. So then the question is what if my wife just does a no show, doesn't contact united or anything. Would United try to create a cancellation fee, or flag our mileage program or take some type of action?
Another question that this has brought up to me is what the overall policy in general is for no shows on the start of a return leg by airlines, United or others for that matter. I'm not talking about trying to join the return leg on the layover, but just not taking the entire return leg at all.

Just "no showing" the return is technically a prohibited ticketing practice known as "throwaway ticketing" (because in the paper ticket days you 'threw away' the paper ticket with the return segments on it) -- if you do it just once the likelihood of United caring at all is fairly slim (but not zero) -- if you do it frequently UA can and will come after you for the lost revenue (by recalculating fares for the flights actually used which from an international round trip restricted fare to a international one-way fare can be astronomical). Again United could strip mileage and/or close the MP account connected with prohibited ticketing. but it's virtually unheard of for one missed ticket. Two tickets in rapid succession going opposite directions across the pond may attract slightly closer scrutiny but but again I'd be surprised.

With a no-show once any segment is not flown all subsequent downline segments would be "automatically" canceled (it's not immediate but can be fairly fast) so you wouldn't be able (to count on) picking up the ticket at the connecting city if thats what you were asking about.

Someone else can (I'm sure will :) ) correct me if BE is different but generally change/cancel fees only come into play when you're applying the credit to new travel, thus if you're OK with forfeiting whatever value the return may have you should be able to cancel and forget about it (the fee would only be paid if you used the remaining value) -- this avoids the ticket going into no-show status and keeps UA from trying to find you/figure out what's going on day of departure.

Beware though that EU immigration may also raise questions if they become aware of EU-US-EU round trip with no right of abode in the EU, similarly if you were to book (or turn the current ticket into) a one-way make sure you have proof of your confirmed outbound travel to present at immigration if asked.

In general, it's cheaper to change the return portion of a RT ticket after all of the outbound segments have been flown although this might not apply to UA basic economy tickets. OP might want to do nothing before arrival in Europe and then ask again about the cost of changing the ticket. If OP decides to abandon the return portion of the ticket, it's normally better to cancel than to no show as no show often--depending on the fare rules and CoC--means that any remaining value of the ticket is forfeited.

Interesting. We would have no problem forfeiting any travel credits if we canceled the return leg. And she would not be trying to join part of it, but rather abandoning the entire return leg so as to stay in Europe longer. But the United representative was saying there would be a cancellation charge which would be nice to avoid.

While technically correct, it would not happen on a "no show" if you don't make a habit of this.

Personally, I would wait until you flew the first portion and then see what the fare is adjusting it later. It might be less expensive (and it might not) to try to change it after arrival. Also, schedule changes can be your friend. Depending on how long you feel like waiting, a schedule change could occur allowing you to adjust the flight with no change fee.

A schedule change is not going to allow you to move the flight by a month and depart from a different airport. What it would do is secure a refund of that segment on a half-round-trip basis, without penalty.

OP: You booked BE to save money; it backfired. I don’t fault you for this: I wish I could book BE, but UA’s restrictions on the product are far too Draconian. That said, your numbers feel off: it feels as if you’re being charged for the change as if you were buying a brand new ticket (and paying no-advanced-purchase prices) instead of changing an existing one. I agree with DawgmanOH here (and given the football teams I cheer for, that’s saying something ;). See what it costs to make the change after you arrive. Unless the flight that you’re booked on happens to be nearly sold out — in which case, your alternative plan wouldn’t work either — I suspect the price to be much more palatable.

I wouldn't be concerned walking away from the BE return segment, but I personally would not combine that with booking a new RT on UA to match your return. While the risk of UA taking any action is fairly remote, I would not want to put my 1MM status at risk. If you do not fly UA frequently that would be much less of a concern.

For alternatives, if you want your wife to be on the same UA flight home with you, I agree with the suggestion of waiting until the outbound is flown and see what the change cost is. Otherwise, I'd look into booking a return on a different carrier, possibly a one-way using miles.

Thanks for the suggestions. Will definitely wait till we are in Europe anyway as we still aren’t certain about her plans. I still like BE fares because the price savings is so big that it outweighs the few times where it’s a problem. Kind of like the insurance issue, where we usually get the higher deductible options.

Schedule changes are not going to happen for September IMHO, that schedule is pretty solid now. Cancelling the flights for the return should not cost anything, the only cost would come in trying to re-book them and getting other credit. I don’t see any risk cancelling the segments for the return and buying a separate ticket back from DE.

I disagree.

I certainly wouldn't cancel the return now. Nothing good will come of it the decision needs to be made once the outbound has been taken, unless changing the flights between now and then become cost attractive.

Changes now reprice the entire ticket. Changes after the outbound have flown do not, unless they have updated their logic. It stands to reason that after the outbound the price to change may be substantially lower. Worth a look.

There's no harm to cancel later than now, so do now. You never know.

Worst case, the OP splurges on a OW mileage ticket. Or if they are returning to Europe soon, better yet to purchase a EU to US RT (hat they plan to use) which might be substantially cheaper because of place or purchase.

nobody said to do that :confused: of course not, that would be stupid. You cancel the return after the outbound is flown.