Emily and I had planned to go to Hawaii in late October for a few days at The Andaz Maui. We booked flights in early January and our upgrades (using United miles) on the outbound leg cleared at the time of booking. While we were excited about the trip, we were actually looking to "get out of it" at couple of points across the past few months. We could cancel the trip straight away and receive credit on United minus a $400 penalty - pretty step.
As luck would have it, a United schedule change moved our outbound aircraft from a wide body to a narrow body 737 (slower and domestic first class) and our inbound (direct from OGG to DEN) flight up a little over an hour. Typically United won't notify you of these changes - you have to be diligent about gardening your reservations.
Our hotel reservations (booked with Hyatt points) were refundable so I figured this was our opportunity. I called United and spoke with a great agent and explained that the changes were somewhat annoying (okay maybe a stretch) and she put my on hold to see what she could do. She offered to waive the change fee penalty making the cancellation essentially fee free. We now have roughly $1800 in credit on United - something we'll definitely use over the next year - so no big deal.
The best part is that flight costs have actually come down - so we could rebook similar flights to Maui for a few hundred dollars less. So we may end up taking the trip after all.
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