ryang74

Any suggestions?

I thought I was being "well organized" and I booked a flight to Hawaii 9 months in advance of my trip. Anyway, as it turns out, we can't go (we moved overseas) and I had to cancel our tickets. UNITED has given us a "credit" for our tickets that we have to use within 1 year of the purchase date (which is only 3 months from now)......I don't think we'll be able to make it work as we can't take any holidays in the next 3 months...

Someone told me that I could use my credit to book a new flight, pay the change fees, then cancel the flight once more and then I'd have a year from the date I rebooked the flights....only downside is that I'd have to pay the change fees twice... Has anyone done this? Any other suggestions?

Sweet Willie

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Sweet Willie
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speedytimmy

I have never had to do this, but I believe what you do is try and find the cheapest ticket you can find, book it, and then you get a new voucher with the residual value valid for another 12 months. The 'throw away' ticket can be anything because you don't ever plan to fly it.

camerabug

I don't see why you wouldn't be able to use your credit to buy another ticket and then cancel that flight and extend your credit period by another year. If you are unsure of your future travel plans, just buy a ticket as far out as possible to give you the most amount of time. Another alternative would be to sell your voucher to someone else at a discounted rate.

zabes64

what about using the voucher to buy a refundable ticket? Would he get it all back or get back what he paid and a voucher again for what he paid with a voucher?

star_world

Original form of payment - so a voucher for that portion of the ticket price.

Often1

Thread already answered:
1. Buy new ticket using credit.
2. Cancel new ticket, obtain credit.
3. Functionally extends credit "use by," but OP will have paid two fees.

Needless to say, this becomes a game of diminishing returns because you are paying a fee each time.

zabes64

Ok so if he bought a refundable and refunded it, he'd get a voucher back with more time, correct?

Often1

Correct. If he buys a refundable ticket with a credit, he gets a credit (just no refund/change fee) If buys a refundable ticket with a CC, he gets a credit to his CC for full value and so on.

ryman554

Actually, no.

He gets a credit with the original tickets expiration date. He does NOT get another year.

ChrisFlyer66

That is correct.

Often1

I think you are answering some other person's question. I responded to the guy who asked whether a refundable ticket purchased with a credit is refunded with a credit. He is.

Happy

WRONG. He doesn't going to get a credit on the ticket bought with credit.

He will NOT get a credit when cancel a ticket bought with a credit even though it is a fully refundable ticket! UA specifically says ticket booked with voucher has NO REFUND VALE even it is a Full Fare Fully refundable ticket. (some restricted tickets actually are also fully refundable - you just need to check the fare rules to make sure the refundability and the restrictions.) However you can rebook against it and if the rebooking costs less than the refundable ticket, you get a residual voucher. If higher you pay the difference.

He will get to REBOOK against the new fully refundable ticket with an itinerary he actually would travel on without having to pay a change fee. Or keep rebooking it with yet another refundable ticket if he could not make a trip. This has to be done before the travel date of the existing ticket, essentially reduces the duration to just below 11 months instead of a full year as flights are only available for booking 330 days out instead of 365 days out. Pass the departure date without doing anything, the ticket loses its value regardless its refundability due to it is being paid for by voucher or canceled ticket credit.

There are some Q fares that are restricted (most only allow 1 time change) but are refundable. They are in the sub $200 range for some one-way short hops such as IND-CHI or SFO-SAN that type. Or, depends on the value of the OP's cancelled tickets, he may want to book the FULL Fare, non restricted short hop in the $400 neighborhood - the goal is not to have small vouchers left over after this rebooking which he has only 3 months to do, and it is after the $150 change fee... He needs to find an optimal value so that he does not need to pay a lot extra out of pocket, as well as not getting a low value residual voucher.

You will NOT get a voucher back by cancelling the dummy refundable ticket. A mere cancellation would result total loss of the value.

Trust me for that as I have a $1500 credit to renew every 12 months since 2009 via refundable tickets when none of the actual trips I made would be able to use that voucher effectively. I just perform part of the exercise at HNL airport 2 weeks ago (on rebooking of the refundable ticket) and will have to perform the remaining of the exercise a month from now probably at MIA on the residual voucher now is at $1397.

PTahCha

Refundable ticket purchased with a voucher would become nonrefundable, and you'll get another voucher back when you cancel the new itinerary.

goalie

Bolding mine: