I have a booked United flight in Aug that changed by a few hours, and it says I can change itineraries with no fees. (so long as it's same airports, within 24 hours blah blah)

But as I go through the process to change to a much earlier flight that same day, it is charging me the difference in points. Is it only just a 'no change fee' or am I supposed to be able to pick another flight without paying the fare difference?

You don't have to have a schedule change to be able to change with 'no change fee', so I'm not quite understanding my options here.
The bot chat didn't help any.

Same thing happened to me this morning. I booked August flights this past Saturday and got an e-mail this morning that the flight times had changed. It gave me the option of accepting the new schedule or finding new flights. If I changed from the flights I'd been reassigned to, I'd have to take a credit or pay the difference, depending on the flight. Unfortunately, none of the new flight options were acceptable to me. I called United and they'll be refunding me in full. I did look on their website and the flights I originally booked were available, albeit at a 40% higher fare.

Call them. I've had to do that in the past for changes and points credits.

Marauder Blue 6 said:

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Same thing happened to me this morning. I booked August flights this past Saturday and got an e-mail this morning that the flight times had changed. It gave me the option of accepting the new schedule or finding new flights. If I changed from the flights I'd been reassigned to, I'd have to take a credit or pay the difference, depending on the flight. Unfortunately, none of the new flight options were acceptable to me. I called United and they'll be refunding me in full. I did look on their website and the flights I originally booked were available, albeit at a 40% higher fare.

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update.

So on the chat, after going through the bot stuff, there was a 'chat with agent' option. It was a little slow, but I successfully change both of my flights, with no fee or fare/point difference, to the flights I actually initially wanted but didn't want to pay the higher fare.

One of my flight changes was literally 5 minutes; 7:30am-10:54, arrival changed to 10:59am. Got leaving at 9:30, making it not such an early morning.

So this is a great method to getting cheap(er) flights (I used to do it with SW, but now I know it works for united too)


If you need a flight, but the optimal times are higher $/points, then just book the cheapest flight, usually the first or last of the day, which are also the ones most likely to change. Sometimes flights are the same $ amount, but might be different points, so check both.

Then just wait, and be patient. Good chance they will eventually change the schedule. And even for as little as 5 minutes, it allows you to switch flights for no fee or fare difference.

So I got a 9:45am flight DEN-DFW and DFW-DEN 1:45pm for 7k points each. Face value is 15k each.
Initial flights were 7:30am going and 8:30pm coming home.

For a metallica concert, so no real time schedule I have to meet.

I'm glad that it worked out for you. United can EAD. Unfortunately, my flights are in conjunction with a cruise and I don't have a lot of flexibility.

This makes me so mad. During the summer of 2020, in the middle of Covid, I was playing chicken with United. I had a nonstop flight booked to Seattle for a trip that I knew we weren't going to take. United cancelled that flight and rebooked me on a flight with a layover in SFO, which should have automatically qualified me for a refund.

I went round and round with them for months, with them refusing to give me a refund, saying they were still getting me to my destination on the same day (there was a several hour difference in the itinerary), so I had no right to a refund.

I escalated it and was still denied. I escalated it again and an agent on the phone finally agree I was due a refund, only to get an email a short time later saying my refund was again denied. I had booked the flight with Chase points, and after escalating it with them, they eventually they gave me those points back. But I'm not sure Chase ever got their refund.

I will say, though, all the airlines play this game. American did it to us last summer, and I also had to call to rebook the flights. They did not charge, but o hate calling customer service for something I should be able to do online.

Southwest has done it as well, and actually completely prevented me from changing the new flight. I had my son on a direct flight, and they rebooked him on a flight with a layover, even though there was an option for another direct flight. I had to call to get it fixed, and even the agent was confused about that one. I personally think they cancelled the original flight, rebooked people who had bought cheaper tickets on alternate flights, and then tried to sell the seats on the "new" direct flight for more money.

Travel enough and you start to dislike all the airlines.

TXTransplant said:

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Travel enough and you start to dislike all the airlines.

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So true.

TXTransplant said:

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I personally think they cancelled the original flight, rebooked people who had bought cheaper tickets on alternate flights, and then tried to sell the seats on the "new" direct flight for more money.

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I think this is exactly what's happening to me. My flight is a codeshare with Air Canada and I got them at a really good price. I think they must've realized that they had them priced too low so they pulled this BS.