Need to cancel a ticket, do it ahead of time?
 

I had a business trip cancelled. I'll be able to reuse the ticket with the $100 fee in the next 12 months (I think that is the limit). Should I call United ahead of time to cancel? I don't think I can really do this without re-booking.

Yes, you must call ahead. If you don't cancel ahead of time, the ticket loses all value.

you have to cancel before you fly

make sure you do

Per reports here, cancel by midnight airport time of the day of the ticketed flight. YMMV. I wouldn't wait that long :)

Also, be sure to print out the fare rules so you know exactly what the rules allow. If an expensive ticket, I'd suggest a timestamped screen shot. My encounters with the rate desk have been somewhat brutal in this regard.

Good luck!

Pat

The original ticket is valid 12 months from issuance date, not your cancellation date.

To further confuse the OP :D, the "new" ticket must be issued within a year of the original ticket issuance, but the reservation can be for a flight within available reservations at the time of the new ticketing, even if beyond a year from original issuance. Clear as mud? ;) Then add a refundable/changeable replacement ticket into the mix...hmmm...

Pat

Perhaps you don't care about the $100 fee. But if you do (as one might if it were a personal rather than business ticket), there is nothing to be lost by waiting until the last moment to cancel, and there is something to be gained: there might always be a schedule change, which if sufficiently large, makes the ticket entirely refundable, with no fee. There are many threads here about what is "sufficiently large" -- but experience shows that even small changes can sometimes be negotiated with a phone agent for a full refund. YMMV

Why is the requirement only that it be cancelled by midnight the day of? Wouldn't something like requiring an hour before the original itinerary flight time make more sense? If they want to know that someone is not taking a flight, why bother with midnight at all, if the flight has already left?

Flat tires come to mind, for example. Sometimes you can't know you've missed it until after you've missed it.

I suspect that's when they run the sweep to zero out unused tickets.

One version of the "zero status" theory/practice...

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...2&postcount=13

We FT'ers surely are into such minutia :D

Pat

The domestic fare rules give you the right to stand by for any flight on your ticketed travel date. So it is only at the end of the day (technicallym after the last flight out that calendar day) that you truly have not used the ticket.

Charles

You should cancel after the flight departs especially on non-ref tickets. If the flight cancels, not only do you avoid the $100 change fee, you'll also get a refund on the ticket.

Is this still good advice?

The change fee is now typically $150 isn't it? (I tried to find the fare rules online, but it seems UA is not making any of that available to me. Booking class is "V" ).

On the ticket I may cancel, there's been a schedule change already, but only arriving 35 minutes later now.

Last year, on a UA ticket that I thought was nonrefundable, I got the taxes refunded (applied online). I was surprised - is that common on UA nonrefundable tickets? If so, by when would I have to apply to try to get the taxes refunded?

Yes, you still should get the taxes refunded without doing anything but cancelling your ticket on time. It would make me nervous not to cancel the ticket before the flight; too worried I would forget to do it.