Airline ticket flexibility is more important than ever before, and fortunately airlines have largely adjusted their policies to make travel more flexible. Even so, one huge advantage of booking an airline award ticket rather than paying cash is the flexibility that you get.
Why? Generally you can redeposit the miles for an airline award ticket for a very small fee, or with many programs for free. Even when revenue tickets have flexibility, typically that comes in the form of a credit you can use toward a future ticket, normally with an expiration date.
In this post I wanted to compare airline award ticket change & redeposit policies, because this is an area where we’ve seen lots of improvement since the start of the pandemic.
In this post:
Comparing airline award ticket change & redeposit rules
How do airline award ticket change & redeposit rules compare between airlines? Let’s compare the policies of some major frequent flyer programs. Below I’ll provide a consolidated list, and then we’ll discuss the policies in more detail below, since in some cases there’s some nuance and/or exceptions. Here are the policies of some popular programs (costs are all per person):
- Air Canada Aeroplan charges up to 100 CAD for changes, and up to 150 CAD for cancellations
- Air France-KLM Flying Blue charges €70 for changes, and €70 for cancellations
- Alaska Mileage Plan charges nothing for changes, and nothing for cancellations
- All Nippon Airways Mileage Club charges nothing for changes, and 3,000 miles for cancellations
- American AAdvantage charges nothing for changes, and nothing for cancellations
- Avianca LifeMiles charges $150 for changes, and $50-200 for cancellations
- British Airways Executive Club charges $55 for changes, and $55 for cancellations
- Cathay Pacific Asia Miles charges $50 for changes, and $120 for cancellations
- Delta SkyMiles charges nothing for changes, and nothing for cancellations
- Emirates Skywards charges $25 for changes, and $75 for cancellations
- Etihad Guest charges 100 AED for changes, and 10% of miles redeemed for cancellation
- EVA Air Infinity MileageLands charges $50 for changes, and $50 for cancellations
- JetBlue TrueBlue charges nothing for changes, and nothing for cancellations
- Qantas Frequent Flyer charges 5,000 points for changes, and 6,000 points for cancellations
- Qatar Privilege Club charges $25-100 for changes, and $25-100 for cancellations
- Singapore KrisFlyer charges $0-50 for changes, and $50-75 for cancellations
- Southwest Rapid Rewards charges nothing for changes, and nothing for cancellations
- Turkish Miles&Smiles charges $70 for changes, and $70 for cancellations
- United MileagePlus charges nothing for changes, and nothing for cancellations
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club charges $50 for changes, and $50 for cancellations
A few important things to note:
- You should be concerned with the policy of the program that you booking your ticket with, rather than the airline you’re actually flying with (in situations where you book a partner award)
- A change fee refers to situations where you’re trying to change the date or time of your flight, while a redeposit refers to a situation where you’re trying to just have the miles put back in your account after cancelling a ticket
- I won’t be covering all frequent flyer programs (after all, there are hundreds), but rather will focus on programs that are either really popular due to redemption options, and/or programs partnering with major transferable points currencies
- For awards to & from the United States, you can generally expect that you can cancel them for free within 24 hours of booking, which provides flexibility for changes you need to make shortly after booking
With that out of the way, let’s look at the policies of each program in more detail. I’ll also list the deadlines by which you need to cancel or change an award ticket.
Air Canada Aeroplan
While Air Canada Aeroplan is one of my favorite frequent flyer programs, it doesn’t have a particularly generous or simple policy when it comes to ticket changes and redeposits. As a general rule of thumb, you can expect that a ticket change on a standard award will cost you 100 CAD, while a ticket redeposit on a standard award will cost you 150 CAD.
Fees are potentially lower if you’re booking a higher priced award, and you can also expect to pay more to refund a ticket through the call center (though there’s no reason to do that, since you can easily redeposit awards on aircanada.com). Also note that fees are per direction of travel, so you’ll pay even more if you’re traveling roundtrip on one itinerary.
For Aeroplan, you must change or cancel your award ticket at least two hours before departure, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Air France-KLM Flying Blue
Air France-KLM Flying Blue has access to a lot more Air France and KLM award space than other programs, so it’s quite valuable. The program charges €70 to either change or redeposit an award ticket, so the cost is the same regardless of what you need to do with your award ticket.
For Flying Blue, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to the check-in deadline for your flight, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Alaska Mileage Plan
Alaska Mileage Plan no longer has any change or redeposit fees on award tickets, making it a solid program for locking in an award, especially given all the great uses of Mileage Plan miles. The only thing to note is that Alaska charges a $12.50 partner award booking fee per direction of travel, and that’s non-refundable if you cancel.
For Mileage Plan, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to the scheduled departure time of your flight, or the ticket will be forfeited.
All Nippon Airways Mileage Club
All Nippon Airways (ANA) Mileage Club has some great Star Alliance redemption values, though the program can be pretty complicated. ANA allows free changes to the date and time of award ticket flights, but those changes must be made at least 96 hours before departure.
As far as redepositing award tickets goes, Mileage Club charges miles rather than money for that. Specifically, you can expect to pay 3,000 miles per ticket. You’ll then have your award taxes and fees refunded as well.
For Mileage Club, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to the scheduled departure time of your flight, or the ticket will be forfeited.
American AAdvantage
American AAdvantage no longer has any change or redeposit fees on award tickets. So this is a great program for locking in speculative awards, especially given all the great partner awards that can be booked with AAdvantage miles.
For AAdvantage, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to the scheduled departure time of your flight, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Avianca LifeMiles
Avianca LifeMiles is a popular program for Star Alliance first & business class awards. Making a change to a LifeMiles award ticket will cost you $150, regardless of what the change is. Redepositing your ticket, meanwhile, will cost you $50-200. You can expect to pay around $50 for a short haul economy award ticket, while you can expect to pay $200 for a long haul first or business class ticket.
For LifeMiles, you can change or cancel your award ticket either 24 or more hours prior to departure, or 24 or more hours after scheduled departure, so that’s quite flexible. For whatever reason, you just can’t change or cancel your ticket in the 24 hours before or after scheduled departure.
British Airways Executive Club
British Airways Executive Club offers lots of great partner award redemption options. You can expect that making a change to an award ticket or redepositing the Avios for an award ticket will cost you $55 if done online, with an extra $25 fee for doing so via the call center.
Note that the fee varies based on where in the world you are. For example, at the moment you can expect to pay €42.50 in the European Union, or £35 in the United Kingdom.
There is one interesting quirk to canceling Avios awards, which is that you don’t have to necessarily pay the full cancelation fee to redeposit an award ticket booked with Avios. You either have to forfeit the taxes & fees or pay the fee to get your Avios refunded.
In other words, if you booked an award within the United States on American, you’d generally only pay $5.60 in taxes & fees. So rather than paying $55, you could just forfeit $5.60, and get your Avios back.
For Executive Club, you must change or cancel your award ticket at least 24 hours before departure, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
While Cathay Pacific Asia Miles isn’t my favorite program on earth, it does offer decent redemption rates on Cathay Pacific, and often has access to extra award space. Asia Miles charges $50 or 7,500 Asia Miles for a flight changes, and charges $120 or 17,000 Asia Miles for a flight cancellation. Paying cash is definitely the better deal than redeeming miles, in my opinion.
For Asia Miles, you can actually cancel or change your ticket after scheduled departure, as long as it’s within the ticket validity period. So that’s very nice flexibility to have.
Delta SkyMiles
Delta SkyMiles has also improved its policy on award tickets, and no longer has any change or redeposit fees on SkyMiles reservations when originating in North America. The only exception is when booking basic economy tickets with SkyMiles, as those don’t offer the same flexibility. Furthermore, unfortunately tickets originating outside of North America are still subjected to a $150 per person change or redeposit fee, though that’s not consistently enforced.
For SkyMiles, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to the scheduled departure time of your flight, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Emirates Skywards
Emirates Skywards is the best program for booking Emirates first class awards. The carrier’s fee structure can be a bit complicated for awards, depending on the type of award you booked. Skywards charges up to $25 to change the date of an award flight, though there’s no cost to change Flex Plus awards. Meanwhile Skywards charges up to $75 to redeposit an award, though there’s no cost to redeposit Flex Plus awards.
For Skywards, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to the scheduled departure time of your flight, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Etihad Guest
Etihad Guest has decent redemption rates for travel on Etihad, and also has some sweet spot partner redemptions.
Making a change to an Etihad Guest award ticket costs 100 AED (~$27), and must be done at least 24 hours before departure. Meanwhile redepositing your ticket will cost you 10% of the miles redeemed. If you redeposit the award, all the taxes and fees will be refunded to your original form of payment.
For Etihad Guest Club, you must change or cancel your award ticket at least 24 hours before departure, or the ticket will be forfeited.
EVA Air Infinity MileageLands
Infinity MileageLands is a useful program because it has more access to EVA Air business class award space than other programs. Infinity MileageLands charges $50 to change or cancel an award ticket.
For Infinity MileageLands, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to the scheduled departure time of your flight, or the ticket will be forfeited.
JetBlue TrueBlue
JetBlue TrueBlue has improved its flexibility for award tickets, and no longer has any change or redeposit fees on TrueBlue reservations. However, the taxes & fees won’t be refunded to your original form of payment, but rather will be added to your JetBlue Travel Bank, and can be used toward a future flight. The only JetBlue awards that aren’t refundable are Blue Basic tickets with TrueBlue points, which are subjected to a $100-200 redeposit fee in the event you need to cancel.
For TrueBlue, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to the scheduled departure time of your flight, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Qantas Frequent Flyer
Qantas Frequent Flyer charges for award changes and redeposits with points. Changing your Qantas Frequent Flyer award ticket will cost you 5,000 points per passenger, while redepositing your Qantas Frequent Flyer award ticket will cost you 6,000 points per passenger.
For Frequent Flyer, you must change or cancel your award ticket at least 24 hours before departure, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Qatar Privilege Club
Qatar Airways Privilege Club has solid redemption rates for travel on Qatar Airways, and now also has attractive partner award pricing.
The program charges $25 for changes or cancellations made more than 24 hours before departure, and $100 for changes or cancellations made between three and 24 hours of departure.
Privilege Club doesn’t allow changes or cancellations within three hours of departure, so you’ll forfeit all your Avios, and will just get back any taxes and government fees that you paid.
Singapore KrisFlyer
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer is the best program for booking premium cabin Singapore Airlines awards. The program’s fees differ depending on whether you’re booking a Saver or Advantage award (with the former being the lowest priced award):
- Changing a Saver award ticket costs $25-50, changing an Advantage award ticket costs $0-25
- Redepositing a Saver award ticket costs $75, redepositing an Advantage award ticket costs $50
For KrisFlyer, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to scheduled departure time, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Southwest Rapid Rewards
Southwest Rapid Rewards doesn’t have any change or redeposit fees on award tickets. This was the first major program to have such a policy, and the airline continues to take a very customer-friendly approach with this.
For Rapid Rewards, you must change or cancel your award ticket at least 10 minutes prior to scheduled departure, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Turkish Miles&Smiles
Turkish Miles&Smiles has some valuable sweet spot redemptions, including both for travel on Turkish Airlines, and for travel on partner airlines. The program charges $70 to either change or redeposit an award ticket, so the cost is the same regardless of what you need to do with your award ticket.
For Miles&Smiles, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to scheduled departure time, or the ticket will be forfeited.
United MileagePlus
United MileagePlus no longer has any change or redeposit fees on award tickets. So this is a great program for locking in speculative Star Alliance awards.
For MileagePlus, you must change or cancel your award ticket prior to the scheduled departure time of your flight, or the ticket will be forfeited.
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club has the following charges for award changes and redeposits:
- Changing an award costs £30 in the UK, or $50 in the United States (or an equivalent amount in another currency)
- Redepositing an award costs £30 in the UK, or $50 in the United States (or an equivalent amount in another currency)
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club requires you to cancel award tickets at least 24 hours before departure, or else you forfeit your points.
Bottom line
Airline award tickets can not only unlock amazing first & business class seats for huge discounts, but also offer significant advantages when it comes to changing or canceling tickets. Nowadays many frequent flyer programs don’t even have change or redeposit fees for awards, which is awesome.
I tend to think that these policies are worth keeping in mind when planning travel, especially if it’s speculative in nature. Based on my own redemption patterns, I’m particularly happy about the policies of Alaska Mileage Plan and American AAdvantage.
If OMAAT readers have any award ticket change or redeposit experiences to share, please do so in the comments section!
I don’t think that Delta policy is completely accurate. You only cancel with no charges if you booked a main cabin and not basic economy. Great list though, thank you.
Be careful with some programs’ policies. We booked award tickets on Finnair using Iberia Avios miles. The tickets were very inexpensive (around 7500 miles each), but when we had to cancel our flights because of a change in plans, we were informed that they would not refund the miles to our account because the flights were on a partner airline, not on Iberia. If they were on Iberia, they would have been deposited for a nominal fee. Live and learn I guess.
What about Lufthansa/Swiss Miles and More?
Air France change and cancellation award fee is 50 Euros. When did it change to 70?
@ JT -- It changed in the past few weeks, and you'll see the updated pricing on the Flying Blue website.
Change and cancelation fees are what keep Aeroplan from being a top loyalty program. Plus it’s nearly impossible to get a human on the phone.
Yeah they have some great rates and routing rules, but you better be sure you’re not going to change.
Extended my trip over the holidays and got hit with TWO change fees bc my wife and I were on separate reservations. That hurt.
FWIW if you have super elite status on air Canada , award cancellations are free.
This is great Ben - thank you! One small addition - Turkish does not allow a refund on award tickets within 24 hours of purchase. Once you click purchase, it's a done deal, despite what their website promises you
FYI, Etihad Guest refunds have recently changed. You get 100% of miles back, with refund fees deducted from taxes/fees paid instead. Refund fee differs per sector. Not sure when this became effective, but last few refunds over past couple months have been the same for me, and call center confirmed the new policy.
If I remember correctly, CX does not charge no show fee nor forfeit Asia miles even after departure of the flight. Just remember to pay either rebooking fee (if you wanna still use it for the same route AND there is availability on your desired flight) or cancellation fee to get asia miles back before the ticket expires (within one year after ticket is issued). Please correct me if im wrong.
How quickly do we get the miles back on a cancelled international ticket on United? On AA, sometimes it takes a day or two.
@ Daniel B. -- In my experience it's usually nearly instant.
That’s great, thank you!