United Airlines Will Now Allow You To Combine Electronic Travel Certificates

a white airplane in the sky

I may have been living under a rock and missed this one.  But, apparently United changed their procedures recently to allow more than one electronic travel certificate to be applied to the same reservation.

The agent I spoke with said it was a new policy started within the last month.  To be sure, this doesn’t apply to most folks.  Electronic travel certificates are issued for a handful of reasons:

  • Customer cancels and rebooks a flight, doesn’t use the entire amount of old ticket.
  • Voluntary denied boarding (you offer to take a different flight in exchange for a voucher).
  • Problem with your flight.  Though less frequent nowadays, United used to hand out a ton of vouchers for mechanical or other in-flight issues.

The problem with these vouchers was that you could only use one for each reservation.  That meant keeping track of them in some form or fashion.  And, if you had multiple people traveling plus multiple vouchers, that might necessitate separate records.  That’s a bit of a pain in the butt for things like Economy Plus seating assignments for family members if they don’t have the same status as you.  Agents could help with most of these items by cross-referencing records, but it was a bit of a pain.

Just Pick Up The Phone

Now, United can combine the vouchers into one.  It requires calling reservations.  It also requires the reservations agent to call Special Services, which can mean a lengthy hold time.  But, it’s a nice plus for those of us who travel frequently and end up with multiple vouchers.

The post United Airlines Will Now Allow You To Combine Electronic Travel Certificates was published first on Pizza in Motion

 

20 Comments

  1. wow – this couldn’t have been better timing. I have 3 vouchers that are going to expire and would love to combine them all for one trip. I will definitely be calling today. Thanks!

    1. How easy is to redeem these travel certificates? Are there a lot of restrictions during the high seasons or do the flights have only a limited amount of seats to use them?
      I’m asking because United is offering me those or an amount in money that is less than the certificates…

      Thanks

      G

      1. Guillermo, travel certificates are pretty much just like cash, but can only be redeemed for flights on United’s website or through their call center. If you know you’ve got some United flying coming up, I’d take the certificates.

    1. Update: I called twice and they told me that they can’t combine partially used vouchers. They have to be unused. That was disappointing, but still better than nothing.

  2. I have one certificate expiring 5/31/18 and the other expiring 6/19/18. Will United allow me to use the 6/19/18 when combining them? Thx

  3. HawaiiDreaming was apparently told that they could not combine partially used certificates. I just called and they did combined one full and one partial.

    1. That is great to hear! I wonder if they changed that or whether I was given bad information by multiple agents. Either way, that is wonderful!

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