Over the weekend United made a no notice change to it’s schedule change policy that also applied to tickets that were already booked. Previously if there was a schedule change of more than two hours United would offer a refund. United changed that to 25 hours. The idea obviously being that this way they would be able to dramatically reduce service without having to accommodate customers or give them a refund they should be entitled to.
Now United is saying that “[f]or any rebooking that goes beyond 2 hours, those customers can change for free or cancel altogether, and use the value of that ticket toward future travel up to 15 months from their original ticket issue date.”. If United wants to add these type of terms then they should honor the policy that was offered at the time of booking and introduce these new rules for new bookings. Changing a flight by a full day and not offering a refund is simply unacceptable. This response by United reminds me of how they handle the Dr Dao incident.
