United Airlines Revamping Some Fees For MileagePlus Members

Image courtesy of Adam Fagen

Determining what fees you’ll have to pay when making changes to your United Airlines itinerary is about to get a bit slightly less complicated for MileagePlus members, as the airline recently unveiled it would create one set of fees for changing and canceling flights. 

The airline announced this week that it will try to streamline things for these frequent fliers by creating one set of fees for changing and canceling flights.

The changes, which will apply to flights booked after Oct. 6, provide members with fees based on how close the new travel date is to their or original itinerary.

For the most part, the changes drop the price members will pay to have an itinerary changed. Gold and Silver members will see a $25 drop in their fees, while general MileagePlus members will see their fees drop from $200 to $125, Forbes reports.

However, in some cases the the amount of time members have to make changes is shorter, and some groups that previously wouldn’t have paid a fee in that time frame now will.

For example, while a Premier Platinum member (collects over 75,000 miles annually) won’t pay anything to change their reward travel up to 61 days before departure, they will pay $50 to make changes if they are needed 60 days out from the scheduled travel date. Previously, these member only paid a fee if changes were made within 21 days of their flight.

Here’s a chart of the new United Mileage Plus fees:

Screen Shot 2016-08-05 at 2.23.23 PM

Forbes reports that United is also revising its policy on international stopovers. The carrier will now allow members to use what it’s calling an Excursionist Perk.

The perk lets a member traveling overseas to make an additional stop without it requiring the use of extra reward miles.

[via Forbes]

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