Update 5/28/20: Fee waiver policy is now until June 30th, 2020. Hat tip to Emcd23
Update 3/10/20: United has updated it’s fee waiver policy. It now covers flights from March 9, 2020 – April 30, 2020 and bookings made before March 2nd, 2020. New tickets must be reissued on/before December 31, 2020 or 12 months from original ticket date, whichever is earlier.
Original post: United is the latest airline to announce that they will be waiving change fees on bookings made between March 3rd & March 31st, 2020. Customers that book during this period will be able to change their ticket to a flight of equal or lesser value (you can also just pay the fare difference for flights that are more expensive) for up to 12 months from the original ticket issuance date. If you cancel your flight then you retain the value of the ticket that can be applied to a new ticket within 12 months of the original ticket issue date. For award bookings you can get the miles and taxes back with no fees as well. See Dans Deals update
This is the most generous policy that I can see currently, you can view other airlines policies below:
Hat tip to Dans Deals
Anyone got a chance to see if fare difference has to be paid for the flight change that has the original booking before 3/2? I am wondering if the charges can be waived.
you gotta pay the fare difference of course
It’s still United..
I have round trip united award flights to Asia in August booked in Jan, I don’t get free fee wiaver or free cancellation?
I have an international United MileagePlus ticket I booked on 20 March using United miles it is with a partner airline. I have a question and cannot get through to United to ask them, so I want to ask other people their experiences. I’m an American who is on the other side of the world, and I will be trying to get back to the U.S in April. With countries closing their borders, it is making things complicated to plan the flights back to the U.S. Long story short but I also cannot stay where I am for longer than the end of April. I haven’t tried making any changes to my ticket yet on the United web site. How many changes can we make to tickets for free during this time? Is it only one time where the change fee is waived? Or are we able to change multiple times? I could see having to make 5 – 6 or more changes before this whole crisis is over as the situation is evolving every day. Also, if I cancel the ticket, and it becomes a “canceled open booking” can it be booked again multiple times? I mean, can it be booked again using the credit, cancelled again (if necessary), and rebooked again, etc? Basically I’m just seeking any answer on whether multiple changes and multiple cancellations to e-credit and rebooking is being allowed. I can’t get the answer from United because I can’t get through.
Can anyone please tell me how the “free changes” and other covid-19 policies apply to award tickets? I’m a U.S citizen who is overseas, and I will need to leave and come back to the U.S in April.
Anyone try to change or cancel an award ticket recently with the covid-19 policies? I’m just wondering.. what happens if I book an award ticket.. but then the country I’m flying to (before the U.S) bans foreigners.. so would I be able to cancel the ticket? Are there unlimited number of changes allowed without penalty or it’s just one time? All of this is getting more complicated by the day.
I have a flight booked for April 17, I stupidly booked my flight under Basic Economy because at the time prices were going up. I rarely fly Basic economy so i’m regretting it.
I looked up flights, and due to all this the price has dropped $150 for the same flight while also upgrading to regular economy.
I’m not cancelling my trip so I’d like to cancel, and rebook the same flight for the lower rate. Anyone think this is possible, due to this new policy from the virus?
I just tried to do this. My original flights were $200+/ticket ONE WAY and I found that RT tickets for the same dates were now $77 RT. I cancelled the flights this morning (it specifically said on the “manage bookings” page that I was eligible for a change/cancellation waiver).
United DID NOT send me any sort of code for the credit. They just sent an email that said my flights were sucessfully cancelled and to use my original reservation code to rebook when ready within the next 12 months. I tried to do this and could not get the flights I wanted or ANY OTHER FLIGHTS to appear. Ended up paying for the new tickets seperately (so I know that seats were available).
I will figure out how to use my credit later. My worry at this point is that the cancellation/rebooking is for the same destination only – there is no fine print anythwere that I can find either way but it does worry me that I was able to see any rebooking options for my supposed “credit”
“For award bookings you can get the miles and taxes back with no fees as well.”
Are people actually getting miles redeposited without a fee? I don’t see that language anywhere on the United side. And when I go to cancel my reservation online it is prompting me to pay the fee. United twitter echos that the redeposit fee is not waived.
We’re you able to get your award flight canceled with miles redeposited for free?
David
DoC, where is this line specifically mentioned? “For award bookings you can get the miles and taxes back with no fees as well.”
Dans Deals has a diff interpretation
“Update: United has clarified that:
No refunds will be given for awards, but you can cancel your award and rebook any other award within 1 year with no penalty. However if the new award costs fewer miles you will not receive a mileage refund. Note that United may still offer mileage refunds, but it will be on a case by case basis. If you booked an award in the past 24 hours you can still get a free refund for it.
If your new ticket is less expensive than the old ticket you normally would receive a voucher for the difference in fare. However United writes that they will not be offering any vouchers or refunds under this free change and cancellation policy, so you won’t want to rebook less expensive travel and you won’t be able to transfer your ticket to someone else via a voucher as you would normally be able to. If you booked a paid ticket in the past 24 hours you can still get a free refund for it.”
United website has no mention about treatment of award flights.
I was basing that on what Dans Deals originally reported. I’ve updated it to make it clearer
So I cancelled a flight for today (3/10) this past Friday (3/6). It seems like this would qualify but I just checked and they’re still charging a $200 change fee online.
Good job United! They helped me cancel for free
Important for context, since DoC keeps updating with new posts, rather than updating previous related posts (norm I applaud you guys, not with this sequence, with clearly crooked United and American -btw, i wont read a reply of yours, i’m on vacation, yet I have no doubt I think any possible rebuttal of yours’ is wrong. Ftr: I have absolutely no other compensation possibilities, incl via other parties like Chase):
I wrote to the clearly relevant and linked previous posts:
Before the United crooks were forced to take this action by overwhelming public opinion (and forced not to be utter crooks, in this one instance, as opposed to their usual m.o.), let me reiterate what I wrote to a previous post by the wonderful DoCs (yes, I know it should be Ds of C, but that doesn’t look right, does it??):
“The next time they come begging for a bailout and massive welfare, let us all remember all of these actions where they go out of their way to eff us, customers and taxpayers alike.
Their stock price is continuing its massive dive, off another 10+ percent today. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch*.
*Of all of the thousands of great customer-company interactions I’ve had with big companies (waives to the likes of Costco, Starbucks, 3M, Amica, etc, etc), I’ve only had a handful that were shockingly bad and unethical. Four of which were with United and American (btw, it’s not about airlines, I’ve had fantastic interactions with Southwest and Alaska, to name two.)”
Leopards don’t change their spots; particularly with execs and board crooks who would have Munoz then Kirby (!!!! :)))) ) incompetent crooks attempt to manage the company. Of course, incompetence never altering the tens/hundreds of millions of dollars of ‘compensation’ welfare given to crooked and incompetent execs (hey, screw the owners of the company –interestingly only refered to as ‘shareholders’.)
What? Can you try making this more clear? I’m not going to read any your replies because they will be wrong.
Can you stop rambling and make a concise point in a few sentences? They teach that in high school English.