Update: They are now at least offering a travel credit, but still not good enough.
United has made a no notice retroactive change to it’s schedule change policy. Previously if there was a schedule change of more than two hours, United would refund you. Now the schedule needs to be 25 hours before United will refund you. As mentioned this is a retroactive change, meaning that United will be applying this new rule to existing bookings. To me this signals that United plans to make massive schedule changes due to COVID-19 and a lot of them will be in excess of that two hour buffer they used to give themselves. I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t see how applying this change retroactively is even legal. In a case of United attempting to applying this new retroactively I’d suggest doing the following:
- Immediately file a charge back with your credit card issuer for services not rendered.
- File a complaint with the Department of Transport. It might also be worth filing a complaining to the FTC for misleading advertising and also to your state attorney general as well
Keep in mind that these schedule changes are likely a cost cutting measure by United and they should absolutely be providing customers with a refund. In my opinion this is an absolutely insane move and even if not enforced will result in a lot of goodwill being lost by United. At this stage I couldn’t recommend that anybody book a ticket with United, because who knows what other negative retroactive changes they have planned?
How much does @united want to conserve cash? Before Saturday, after a schedule change of more than two hours, United happily would refund you. The new policy is 25 hours. Spokeswoman said: “We do everything we can to rebook customers in as timely a manner as possible.” pic.twitter.com/BgEQ1PsyHA
— Brian Sumers (@BrianSumers) March 7, 2020
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