United Ticket Change Fee

[rferr]

My wife, daughter and I are going on a cruise in July. I booked the cruise and went ahead and bought the air as well. In retrospect I should have waited and that is part of this post. I purchased round trip direct tickets on United for 557 roundtrip from Washington, DC to San Juan. When I purchased the tickets in Mid-March they were competitively priced considering they were the perfect times and direct flights. I could have saved a few bucks with bad times or long layovers.

 

After I bought the tickets I heard about the site Yapta.com which monitors your air tickets and sends you an email telling you that the fares have dropped and that you might be entitled to a refund. Well my tickets dropped by 197 dollars each and Yapta sent me an email. I called United and inquired. The lady on the phone said she was issuing me 3 197 dollar travel vouchers good for a year. After I got off the phone I noticed in the Yapta email according to Yapta United's policy is to charge you a 150 dollar change fee per ticket and then give you a travel voucher for the difference. The United customer service agent did not say anything about a 150 dollar fee and did not ask whether she could charge my card. After the transaction I wondered exactly what I had gotten. I really did not want to spend 450 dollars for a little under 600 bucks in travel vouchers.

 

As such upon thinking about it I decided to call the next day and see and I spoke to another person who indicated that I had not been charged 150 dollars per ticket and would not really give me any more info.

 

Does anyone know what is going on with this?

 

Thanks.

[6rugrats]

I am assuming you had nonrefundable tickets. You got lucky. You should have been charged a $150 change fee per ticket before any refare occurred. I assume this is due to the gigantic mess that UA is now that they've switched to using CO's computer programs. If they have your credit card on file, you may see this fee yet; keep an eye on it.

 

Advise you check your itinerary and make sure you still have valid tickets.

 

Good luck getting those vouchers; I have a couple that I've been owed for over a month, and despite several phone calls, I have yet to receive them. Note that usually the vouchers must be used by the originally ticketed passenger within one year of the original ticketing date.

[rferr]

I figured that. I will wait and while and see what happens is all I can do.

[6rugrats]

I just changed the return city on an award ticket, and I should have been charged $25 for each ticket, but I wasn't and the agent even commented on it. Just cross your fingers and hope for the best!

[rferr]

I am assuming you had nonrefundable tickets. You got lucky. You should have been charged a $150 change fee per ticket before any refare occurred. I assume this is due to the gigantic mess that UA is now that they've switched to using CO's computer programs. If they have your credit card on file, you may see this fee yet; keep an eye on it.

 

Advise you check your itinerary and make sure you still have valid tickets.

 

Good luck getting those vouchers; I have a couple that I've been owed for over a month, and despite several phone calls, I have yet to receive them. Note that usually the vouchers must be used by the originally ticketed passenger within one year of the original ticketing date.

 

Yes when I got to United.Com Manage my Reservation everything still comes up with flights, confirmations and seat assignments and the receipt now shows a price of 360.40 per ticket instead of the 557 I originally paid.