compwhiz

Strange thing happened yesterday. My father-in-law had his itinerary completely messed up by his corporate travel. He was supposed to go to Boston 5/31 and come back on 6/4, but they accidentally booked him for 5/27 returning 5/28. So when he was trying to check-in online yesterday, he realized he had no itinerary, I looked into it, told him what happened, and called UA on his behalf to help straighten things out. I asked agent if his no-show ticket had value, and she apparently said it could've been done couple of different ways. If that ticket was shown as exchange to another non-refundable ticket, the value that would remain was quite low - but she said if the processed it as an exchange for a refundable fare, there was no $150 change fee, and as a result, the extra fare amount he'd have to pay was quite a bit less.

So, I just wanted to verify if this was indeed true, and if UA will allow you to apply credit from a non-refundable fare to a refundable fare without incurring $150 change fee.

aisleorwindow

I don't believe that is correct. I've never tried exactly what you're doing, but I've tried to "buy-up" an itinerary from a lower fare class to a higher fare class, and there was a $150 charge for that.

In the old days, this used to be free. Nowadays, NOTHING can be done on UA without an exorbitant change fee.

compwhiz

I agree, I thought the same, but I am telling you that she did it completely differently. I saw both old receipts and the new receipts, and the only thing charged was the difference between two fares.

WineCountryUA

The act of a single agent does not make UA policy.

The agent may have, for whatever reason, decided to waive the fee -- but g_leyser is correct that UA policy has been to charge the fee even for up faring.

compwhiz

I agree, except that the agent was telling me that this is what the computer is telling her/doing for her - so she was not doing any overrides, etc. She told me that she was doing everything according to the policy - and I was talking to the 1K desk, not ICC.

cordelli

Well if that was the case, I'm sure by posting it here they already have people working on it to collect the fee for the future.

There should have been a change fee, otherwise people would do it whenever their plans change, step it up to a no fee refundable, and then cancel it and take the credit/cash, etc.