Changing award travel question

As a 1K, what are the rules concerning changing an award ticket once travel begins?

I am hoping that some F space opens up on a LH direct flight between MUC-SFO as we get closer in to the date of travel though my guess is that if I get lucky it won't be until after I have already started my trip. Will I be able to change it from MUC-LHR-SFO if space opens up?

You can do it... no charge.

Yup. I've done it many times.

Especially literally before the check-in cutoff for the flight too .

I've done it after being checked in. It creates a few more issues, but it can absolutely be done.

Heck, I even made a change half way through a CAI-IST-JFK return, making it CAI-IST//BCN-(BRU-LHR)-EWR, while sitting in the lounge in IST.

Ok, that gives me some relief. Thanks for all the answers.

Keep in mind that if you are checked in you have to get the operating carrier to undo the check in so that the folks at United can change the itinerary. But other than that, so long as the new booking is still a valid award itinerary there should not be any issues.

Technically the rule is you have to change at least 24 hours before the scheduled flight you intend to take, but I've done it a couple of hours before flight. On at least one occasion I had to argue to get it done, but it's certainly possible right up to flight time. Just make sure the ticket gets pushed through to the partner airline!

Where does it state this? I've never run into that issue.

Would this apply to non-elites as well? Reading the chart on UA it seems that I could make a change to a segment and it wouldn't incur a change fee. Silly me I didn't check if our connecting SQ flight from HKG to SIN had enough seats in Y!!!! just assumed there would be enough so I made a reservation for me and my son and made a separate one for my wife and daughter. We are currently on different connecting flights to SIN. I was able to get the UAgents to correct the price to 140K miles with no call center fee instead of 165K miles on my reservation but my wife's reservation has been ticketed. Should I play phone roulette and have them rebook it for me (i tried again myself and it still shows 165K) or just ticket it and then make a change later on?

Thanks!

I don't think you have to be elite for this, but I could be wrong.

I'm a Premier Silver and was able to do the changes (ZRH-BOS-SFO to ZRH-JFK-SFO).

While the change fee rules are dictated by elite status the ability to make changes is not.

Thanks Desamo and WA.

Here's the charty chart.

Basically: so long as you're >21 days out, no charge. After that, it depends on your elite status.

Thanks! That's the chart I saw. My only concern was that I am on SQ for the final leg but I am changing to another sq flight so based on this chart I should be ok.

Yes, you should be fine keeping the same carrier and 21+ days out. If you change carrier there is now a fee, regardless of when the change is made. That fee varies based on status (and will be zero for top elites).

Cool beans...on a side note, not sure if I should put it somewhere else as it is OT. The agent booked my wife's reservation for her, daughter, and infant for 120K for trip EWR-SFO, SFO-HKG, HKG-SIN in U/F, U/GF, and SQ/Y but charged me $125 ($50/$75). Saved 20K points...should I look at it as a gift and be thankful, which I think i am leaning towards, or am I getting over charged here. My same exact reservation is 140K.

EWR-HKG should be 70K in F each way. If you paid less than that I'd keep quiet about it.

yeah...i'll shut up and be happy unless they change it later then I'll fight for the extra charge that they made...

Pre-merger United had a rule (generally not enforced) that you could ticket a new Star Alliance award up to a couple of hours before flight, but that changes to an existing award had to be made 24 hours prior to travel.

That rule did not apply to pre-merger Continental.

Shortly after the March 3 integration, this rule was listed on the website. Though since it wasn't even often enforced by United (though I had arguments with supervisors about it), I didn't expect it to be enforced going forward but had previously flagged it as YMMV.

That rule no longer appears on the website:
http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/mileageplus/awards/travel/starairawards.aspx

(Which of course doesn't mean some agents, who recall the old pre-merger United rule, won't cite it to you.)

Of course there are still other odd rules listed, like that an enroute stopover is fine but

Now, the new system of award rules seems to track more closely to pre-merger Continental where Maximum Permitted MIleage wasn't enforced.

Pre-merger announcement United used to enforce MPM. Then post-announcement that was revised to MPM+15%. And following even the stricter pre-merger MPM+15% rule (compared to the more lax pre-merger CO rule), HKG would be an allowable stopover from many US cities enroute to AKL.

So I genuinely don't know what this rule about circle trips is even supposed to mean, or how to know ex ante that a given route will be allowed or not.

I realize this is a little bit of an off-topic rant, sorry [/quote]