My client hasn’t quite made premier status this year, but she decided it was worth any reasonable amount of money to avoid the back of the plane with United, especially on a long flight.
Thus, when we booked a trip to India via Frankfurt, she cheerfully went to United.com and paid over $100 each way for Economy Plus seating. So far, so good.
But, then she needed to change the trip, less than a week prior to departure. And the date change cost not only a $300 change fee, but the fare difference which is now about an additional $300. Since the traveler knew the risks going in, this wasn’t a problem either.
However, since she had already paid for Economy Plus both ways, she figured she could apply the fee towards her new return flight. Wrong. If she wants Economy Plus on the changed return, she has to pay ANOTHER fee of over $100 to get a seat again because the original fee was nonrefundable.
To my client’s mind, and she has a point, she’s not asking for a refund, she just wants to transfer a fee paid and she’s already paid $600 for the new date.
United, however, doesn’t see it that way, and it’s their plane and their seat. So they win. But at the cost of a very annoyed client.
United not only get to resell the actual seat on her first flight, the airline gets to resell the Economy Plus seat, or give it to an elite flier.
United is far from the only airline with nonrefundable fees, though this is one of the steepest. Prepaid charges for priority boarding, seats and baggage are all nonrefundable. Though, usually they are smaller amounts. (Admittedly, a family of four prepaying baggage charges can be out a hefty amount if they prepay all their baggage fees.)
After years of losses, I do understand the airlines’ need to make money, but it seems that when a traveler pays a hefty change fee on a ticket, they should get the Economy Plus credit towards that new ticket.
In this case, as it turns out, the new return only has middle seats in Economy Plus, which hardly seems worth the premium in the first place.
So while the traveler plans to write customer service we have figured out an acceptable “work-around,” because I checked her miles and she will become premier after her outbound, so we can get another Economy Plus seat for free — if one is available.
In most cases, this is a tough problem to work around. While it hurts to lose both the Economy Plus seat plus the fee, waiting until closer to departure to pay the charge means a good chance of having no good seats left.
Most fees, however, even priority boarding and on-line discount baggage charges, can be paid up until a few hours prior to departure. The general lesson — if there’s no “early-booking” benefit to paying fees, don’t until you have to do so.
Janice Hough is a California-based travel agent a travel blogger and a part-time comedy writer. A frequent flier herself, she’s been doing battle with airlines, hotels, and other travel companies for over three decades. Besides writing for Travelers United, Janice has a humor blog at Leftcoastsportsbabe.com (Warning, the political and sports humor therein does not represent the views of anyone but herself.)
