United Airlines - too sick to fly

[JaxJags08]

My sis is supposed to fly out on Saturday, but has come down with a stomach virus Does anyone know offhand what United's policy is on schedule changes due to illness? We can provide a dr note. She'll call the airline of course, but I thought I could get a quick answer from all of the minds on the DIS!

TIA!

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

You are out of luck if you wanted a full refund or a free schedule change. United does not consider a stomach virus a serious illness. Their definition of a serious illness is:

Serious illness or injury that would prevent the customer from traveling for the duration of the validity of the ticket (one year from original date of purchase)

You will have to pay the $150.00 change ticket fee to change to another date, plus any difference between the old ticket price and the new price:

http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6867,52995,00.html

Unless you bought a fully refundable ticket, then you'll get all your money back.

Today is only Thursday, if she has the usual type stomach bug, she should be okay by Saturday.

 

[seashoreCM]

Tell her to fast but drink plenty of water. This should give her stomach a chance to recover faster.

 

[DVCBELLE]

I flew with my dd once when she was sick...we bought anti-nausea medicine and she made it through the flight

 

[Kellydelly]

Tell her to fast but drink plenty of water. This should give her stomach a chance to recover faster.

I don't agree, she needs electrolytes so just sipping on water is not going to help her get better. She needs gatorade or a similar drink, and I would munch saltines or pretzels as tolerated. I hope she gets better before tomorrow.

 

[bettymae1121]

Sorry, you're out of luck. If she is too ill to fly, you can cancel the trip now at no cost. If/when she's ready to book a new trip, the old ticket will be applied to the new ticket, minus the $150 fee. The good news is if the new ticket is less than the old ticket, the difference will help cover the cost of the change fee. The old ticket is good for 1 year from date of purchase, you just need to book new travel by that date, you don't have to travel by that date.

For expample, if the old ticket is $500 and the new ticket is $350, then you'd pay nothing out of pocket (as the fee is "paid" by the difference in cost between the old ticket and the new). But, if the old ticket is $350 and the new ticket is $500, you'd pay $300 at the time you buy the new ticket (the $150 change penalty from the old ticket plus the $150 fare difference between the old ticket and the new).

Also the ticket is only good for your daughter, United doesn't allow name changes on tickets, so you can't use it for anyone other than your daughter.

One last thing, if she decides not to fly, make sure you cancel the flight with the airline, don't just "no show" for the flight. If you don't cancel and just not show up, the ticket becomes void and you lose it.

I hope she feels well enough to fly, good luck!

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

Also the ticket is only good for your daughter, United doesn't allow name changes on tickets, so you can't use it for anyone other than your daughter.

No airline will allow you to change the name on a ticket. By the way, OP is talking about her sister, not daughter.

Sorry, you're out of luck.

Is there an echo in here?

 

[jodifla]

And of course, this is why so many people choose to fly sick. They either do that, or lose hundreds -- or even thousands -- of dollars.

I agree your sis will probably be OK by Saturday.

 

[Amstar]

I know when I was playing ball. we would take 1/2 tablespoon of gatorade and 1/2 tablespoon of powerade every hr. if we held that down then we would do it every 1/2 hour. if we held that down then we would up the amount we would take.

This helped with the upset stomach ALOT.

Still works for my kids when they get sick to.

 

[JaxJags08]

Thanks for the replies and well wishes everyone! She is feeling somewhat better, but not well enough to fly her 12 hour international journey. Anyways, she called and moved the flight a few days back and is being charged $200. They gave her an email address where she can email her dr note and they will refund $50 of the change fee.

Funny thing is, it turns out our cousin also got sick with the same symptoms at the same time. They went to dinner together about 24 hours before the symptoms started. Does that sound like food poisoning to you all or maybe they caught the same virus somewhere?

 

[mapmakerj]

No airline will allow you to change the name on a ticket. By the way, OP is talking about her sister, not daughter.

Not entirely true. Allegiant Air will let you change the name on a ticket for a $50 fee up to 24hrs before a flight. I just booked with them and it is right on my confirmation, as well as on their FAQ on their website:

"Air Only Bookings (with no Trip Flex Purchased) - The following rules apply:

Name changes are permitted up to 24 hours prior to departure. Once travel has begun, name changes are not permitted. All name changes will incur a $50 charge per name change.

NO CHANGES WILL BE ALLOWED WITHIN 24 HOURS OF TRAVEL."

 

[bumbershoot]

Funny thing is, it turns out our cousin also got sick with the same symptoms at the same time. They went to dinner together about 24 hours before the symptoms started. Does that sound like food poisoning to you all or maybe they caught the same virus somewhere?

Unless you guys went and had things tested there's not much of a way to know for sure.

I was just at a family reunion in Phoenix, and one by one almost everyone came down with a NASTY, hard-hitting, not-to-be-denied (anti-nausea medicine did NOTHING) stomach thing. I think there were 4 of us who didn't get it out of something like 50 people. My son, as far as I know, was the last to get it, and he's still sick. Everyone else threw up for 3 awful hours, slept for nearly a day, and then it was done. His has been longer, and we're now at my brother's place in San Diego instead of at home in Tacoma, because no one wanted to risk flying how he was.

Worse, the electrolyte stuff is all such crud, with HFCS (which he CANNOT have), colors (which he probably can't have), artificial sweeteners, etc...so he couldn't have those. It's been a long series of days since he was hit (monday night).


Anyway, as it first started to hit the family, it was centered on people who had stayed at my Aunt's place. Then it went out to people who had eaten at a picnic. Stayed like that, where a few of us figured it was the picnic food, until my dad got it, and we'd arrived 3 hours too late to eat at the picnic... But found out later he'd had something there...but then when my son got it we knew (i'd brought food for him b/c of what he can and cannot have) it wasn't that.

Then again, he got it so bad, who knows if it was that same thing at all!

None of us went to the hospital to have things tested, so we'll never know.


Glad she can get some of the change fee taken care of. We were on Southwest so canceling was easy, but our nice low fee certainly isn't there anymore!