Having just spent 30 minutes on the phone with a United customer representative, I thought I would share with you some of the refund policies of United. None of it is particularily bad, but there are some interesting points to note.
Scenarios and Outcomes
Scenario #1: Buy a non-refundable round-trip ticket and never use any of its segments.
Outcome: United will subtract a $100 change free and the left-over credit can be applied to any future ticket purchase regardless of departure / arrival city.
Scenario #2: Buy a non-refundable round-trip ticket and only use the first segment.
Outcome: United will calculate the value of the unused return segment and subtract $100 for the change fee. You can apply the left-over credit towards a one-way ticket from the original destination back to original departure city only. e.g. This means that if you bought a round-trip ticket from ORD to LAX and only used the ORD to LAX segment, the left over credit can only be applied to a LAX to ORD one-way ticket. If you decided to fly, on a future date, the same ORD to LAX round-trip flight, you cannot apply the credit to this round-trip ticket since its part of a round-trip flight.
Scenario #3: Buy a fully-refundable round-trip ticket and never use any of its segements.
Outcome: No change fee. Ticket charges refunded to credit card.
Scenario #4: Buy a fully-refundable round-trip ticket and only use first segment.
Outcome: No change fee. United calculates value of left-over segment(s). Ticket charges refunded to credit card.
There you have it. Please keep in mind that this is United’s policy and may not apply to other airline refund policies.