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Edited to add: My wish came true! AA and Delta followed suit. See this article.
The big news yesterday was United’s announcement of the elimination of change fees. Pre-pandemic, most airlines (except for Southwest Airlines) charged fees of $200 per ticket to change a flight . Since the pandemic, most airlines started temporarily waiving those change fees in order to get people to book tickets.
United went all the way yesterday and announced those crappy $200 change fees are gone for good. Woohoo!
Of course, there are some caveats with the announcement:
–Basic Economy fares are not included
–This new rule only applies to travel within the United States, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands
–You can change your ticket multiple times without a fee, but you still have to fly within a year of the ticket issue date
–If the price of your new ticket is less, you don’t get a refund
United’s new policy also applies to MileagePlus award tickets. Furthermore, United eliminated the $75 standby fee. See this post on One Mile at a Time for all the details.
Game Changer?
For some, this is a big deal. Trip dates are no longer locked in without flexibility at a high cost.
Feeling sick? Move your flights out a couple of weeks. Want to extend your trip? Move out your return date by a few days. Ah, the possibilities!
While I’m excited about this change, my exhilaration is somewhat limited. Why? My family rarely flies United. Our home airports are AA and Southwest hubs. Flying on United is usually more expensive and requires at least one stopover.
But, I am cautiously optimistic that AA will soon follow suit. For most policy changes, the big 3 eventually all fall in line. We saw this happen when earning miles moved from actual miles flown to the cost of tickets.
Unfortunately, AA broke away from Delta and United recently when it started to fill the middle seats instead of leaving them open for more physical distancing on flights. Bah!
Are you excited about United’s recent announcement? Do you think AA and Delta will soon do the same?
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Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
AA is trash. They are the nothing but a large Spirit airlines. Only reason besides nonstop flights to fly them, is because they are typically cheaper.
AA is not my favorite. But, being in the DFW area, I feel like we are stuck with them. They fly to more places from here than Southwest does. And yes, they are sometimes cheaper than even Southwest.