United wants to charge me for a schedule change

[I love to travel]

A question please. I don;t fly UA often as based in Australia but going to the US later this year so not well versed in UA schedule change rules.
I booked DCA to EWR one way basic economy as I have SA Gold so have baggage etc.
I have a 1 hour schedule change. When I go into the booking it said I am eligible for a one time free change. But when I go to the change the filght, even though it says $0, when I get to check out it seems to have bumped me up to an economy fare and wants to charge $49. This is obviously not free. Is this an IT glitch or another issue,?

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I have experience here having flown UA in basic economy and having encountered these schedule changes. Generally speaking, yes if you encounter a cancellation or a change fee you are eligible to rebook to a new flight free of charge. I'll also say that United's IT isn't the best I've seen at handling rebookings, so I would suggest picking up the phone and giving them a call.

In my case, I was flying United Basic Economy from Vancouver to San Francisco during the Crowdstrike non-sense. I booked the cheapest fare I could get which obviously meant departing later in the day than I had liked. However, because United had a travel advisory out, when I got to the airport, I was able to speak to a check-in agent who moved me onto an earlier flight free of charge. As an aside, it would seem that United may have some people hired to steer people towards using the kiosks. I had one of them try to steer me to the kiosk and I told them, look there is a travel advisory out and the kiosk won't be able to tell me which flights are available right now. She didn't believe me and I proceeded to show her, at which point she acquiesced and the agent was able to get me onto the earlier flight.

-RooFlyer88

 

[marki]

I have experience here having flown UA in basic economy and having encountered these schedule changes. Generally speaking, yes if you encounter a cancellation or a change fee you are eligible to rebook to a new flight free of charge. I'll also say that United's IT isn't the best I've seen at handling rebookings, so I would suggest picking up the phone and giving them a call.

In my case, I was flying United Basic Economy from Vancouver to San Francisco during the Crowdstrike non-sense. I booked the cheapest fare I could get which obviously meant departing later in the day than I had liked. However, because United had a travel advisory out, when I got to the airport, I was able to speak to a check-in agent who moved me onto an earlier flight free of charge. As an aside, it would seem that United may have some people hired to steer people towards using the kiosks. I had one of them try to steer me to the kiosk and I told them, look there is a travel advisory out and the kiosk won't be able to tell me which flights are available right now. She didn't believe me and I proceeded to show her, at which point she acquiesced and the agent was able to get me onto the earlier flight.

-RooFlyer88

Excellent advice

 

[I love to travel]

I did call. For some reason the system was showing I had accepted the change. Took about 30 minutes but lovely agent sorted it for me
Oh and call wait time was 1 minute!!