Mini tip if your flight time is changed on United

Had a nice mini "win" last night in planning my August Vegas trip. I'm leaving 4 weeks from Friday! Yeah!!!
I digress.

I miss booking with SW and having to worry with other airlines about changing flights and the corresponding change fees, but I earned a $200 voucher on United by offering to take a later flight on my return from my most recent Vegas trip so I decided to use the voucher for my return trip from Vegas in August. Got a non-refundable fair for about $300 one way. That wasn't cheap but the flight with the voucher cost me only $105 so book it I did; a non-stop flight from Vegas that departed in the early morning and arrived mid-afternoon.

I can't tack on another day to my trip but really wanted to leave later in the day. I knew, however, paying to change my flight wasn't going to make any financial sense.

I don't know why but I decided to double check the flight info online in my United account. When I pulled up my reservation not only had the departure time changed -- flight was moved UP by close to an hour -- but the flight number had changed too. There was a box below the reservation that said basically "check here" if you agree to the changes. I'm sure instinctively a lot of folks just check that box. LVAer that I am, my instincts led me in the right direction and I didn't.

Instead, I called United last night and asked about changing the flight time and got a really nice guy on the phone. I asked, "given that you are changing my flight and making me leave VEGAS EARLIER (at which point he chuckled), can I change the flight time and make it later without any charge?" He didn't take a breath and said "yes", as long as the flight was in the same flight class.

I pulled up all the flights and saw one flight for later that day (around 3 pm getting in around 11 pm) and a non-stop red eye that was leaving around 11 pm and getting in around 6 am the next day. I was temped to do the red-eye but I would then have to head from the airport to the office and that would not be a good way to start off my first day back at work. Unfortunately, however, the red-eye was in my "flight class" but the afternoon flight was not. I hemmed and hawed and then the guy says he can do the 3 pm flight for no change fee or additional cost even though it is not in the same "flight class." (The flight was still in coach but the fare was about $150 more than the red-eye flight.) I thanked him and he made the change. I literally saw my info change in my account while he was doing it. I also got an aisle seat about two rows from where I had booked a seat on my earlier flight.

Bottom line? I get to sleep in late my final morning in Vegas and enjoy a leisurely shower and
Sunday brunch and maybe even fit in a final hour or so of gambling before heading to the airport. By the time I get to my apartment it'll be near midnight but I'll still get a decent night's sleep before heading to work the following day. I'm a very happy camper. Thanks United!

I just made the mistake of checking the "agree" box when my flight was changed. They were nice but they won't change my flight since I was using discounted miles and none of those options were available for other flights that day. I can change the flight to different dates without penalty as long as they are flights with discounted miles. I should have paid better attention to what I was doing. I usually fly SW so the United cancelled flight process was new to me.

I'm glad that this worked out well for you.

Thanks for the info. We usually fly SW, but with their rates getting higher and higher we are starting to look else where.

Glad it worked out FF.

I just got back from quickie trip, and sure enuf...........SW Texted me at 5:27----AM -----AGAIN,
to say my 5:55------------PM -----------flight was being delayed 15 mins.
Big whoop! WHY wake people up to tell them that?

But since thats the flight I wanted, I didn't call & change to something else.
Thought about it..........but kept my flight as planned.

WISH I had though...........some Woman with a horrible sounding Cold & COUGH, was sitting
directly behind me. Flight was Full, so couldn't change seat. Miserable flight back thanks to her.
Hoping to Not catch what GERMS she had. Awful. She should NOT have been flying WITH us.

Here is another twist on the same situation with United. The time change made our connecting flight very tough to make. We had booked out of Milwaukee to save $100 for both my friend and myself. Since he lives in Madison, less than 100 miles away, they not only allowed us to change to a more desirable time, we are now flying out of Madison. I was pleasantly surprised by this.

We just got back had a small flight time change on outgoing and never checked naything. Went to the airport and what had happeded they changed the flight something like 10 minutes (no big deal) but where they screwed me they changed my seat assignment on outgoing. We had aisle seats and they switched them to window and center seats. Same thing just happeded but on United this time. 20 minute change on first leg small plane from Pittsburgh to Washington DC. we had two seats assigned side by side Small plane and they switched them to two windows seats three rows apart. This upset me off on both occassions.