Without warning, United Airlines raised change fees on tickets yesterday by $50, pushing fees on a restricted domestic ticket from $150 to $200 and from $250 to $300 on an international ticket.
After many expressed indignation on Flyertalk, UA Insider posted the following this morning–
Apologies for not being able to respond sooner. As is typically the case with this realm of the business, I can’t provide any insight into the new change fee levels other than to say they are an adjustment to better compensate for the costs incurred when a traveler elects not to fly in a reserved seat. However, what I can tell you is that the new change fee rates are only applicable for tickets issued on or after April 18. No impact to what you may have already had on the books.
A very disappointing rationale that the facts do not bear out.
Does it really cost United $300 for an agent to switch the date on a Chicago – London trip eight months before departure? Of course not. It probably helps the carrier, allowing it to sell the seat at a higher price.
SHARES (United’s passenger service system) is able to offer upgrades, mileage purchases, and other add-ons at dynamic prices based on availability, so it is curious that the change fee structure is so rigid. United award tickets allow for free date and routing changes 21 days or more before departure and United could have distinguished itself from the pack of legacies by adopting a similar approach to revenue tickets. Instead, they went in an an opposite direction.
And speaking of SHARES, say you bought a $900 restricted international ticket and need to change the date. Your new ticket happens to be only $600, meaning that with the $300 change fee factored in, it should be an “even exchange.” Not with SHARES. Instead, you’ll be charged an additional $300 for the change fee then receive the $300 difference between the original and new fare in the form of a travel credit. That is just ludicrous.
I trust United crunched the numbers and found that the figures made sense, but I just cannot help but to see this as another example of United shooting itself in the foot–more cutbacks, more fee hikes, less transparency.
Meanwhile, American Airlines is taking a different approach to ancillary revenue from change fees, selling upfront what amounts to insurance to change your flight through its Choice Essential package. For a cost routinely less than half of what the change fee would be, you can modify your flight without fee (just pay any fare difference) and also enjoy priority boarding and a free checked bag. This afternoon, an e-mail went out to AAdvantage customers highlighting this program–
I cannot say which approach will generate more revenue, but it is clear what approach is more customer friendly.
It just continues to amaze me how tone-deaf and anti-consumer United is post-3/3/12. New leadership is really needed at this point.
Just another reason why I have decided not to fly United any longer. I’ve been 1K with them for a while, but have come to the realization that it’s completely meaningless to United. I’ve been flying SWA this year, and I have to say, it’s light years better than United. The flight attendants are friendly, polite, helpful, and fun. I can’t remember the last United flight where I could say that about the FA’s. I grew up flying United and have very fond memories. Sadly, that United no longer exists.
UA Insider on FlyerTalk needs to communicate with his/her employees. I work for United and there has not been one mention/ written memo/ briefing that this change fee went from $150 to $200. Hello, United, when and how are you planning to tell us ?? I have to read about in the newspapers and travel blogs to find out ? Unbelievable and ridiculous.
That is horrible that you and your colleagues have not been briefed about this change.
I am experiencing a problem with United right now. They are charging me a fee that exceeds the original amount of my flight. I made a reservation on June 3, 2013 for a round trip flight from San Diego to San Francisco on August 11, 2013 and the return flight is August 15, 2013. The charges have not even cleared my credit card and I called to change my out going flight on June 5, 2013, just 72 hours later. The original cost of my flight was 198.70. The fee to change my flight is 200.00. That is an increase of over 100%.
I can’t afford groceries and I have to pay some huge corporation $200 for nothing. This is for an optional work related trip that is coming out of pocket that I had to get a loan for and I do understand that it is my fault for not reading the schedule of my conference correctly but they have more than enough notice to fill my seat on a sold out flight and I tried to change this as soon as had realized my mistake. If 60 days is legally enough time for them to address my problem than 72 hours should be enough time for me to legally cancel my fight without a ridiculous charge.
When I called to change it took under 5 minutes to reschedule my flights but the people had no interest in helping me with the increase of cost and basically told me that I can’t do anything about it. When I told her I was just going to cancel she didn’t even care and just said “the flight is non- refundable.” This flight was booked directly from the United website. I don’t understand how this is legal?
So my options are:
1. To just take the fee and change my flight with United, let them resell my original ticket and make even more money. I am not happy with this because it doesn’t seem right.
2. Cancel my non-refundable flight with United and schedule a flight with another airline. Which will ensure that I don’t get refunded due to cancellation and I will not be backed by my credit card company for the dispute. I am not okay with this because they will still resell my seat and make more money they don’t deserve.
3. Schedule a flight with another airline, don’t show for my flight on United and still don’t get a refund for my un-used flight through my credit card company because I did not cancel my flight with United and they lost out on the resale of my ticket.
Any of the above options will still end up costing me over $400 for a flight that is 1 hour and 37 min one way. I read the rules and restrictions which and I can’t understand them. I feel like I need to be a lawyer to understand what they wrote. I think it says that I can cancel my flight and get credit for another United Flight as long as I book it within a year but I don’t really understand. If you have any suggestions I would love to hear them.