If you have top-level elite status with an airline, you’re often able to redeem miles for an award ticket and then redeposit them back into your account without paying any fees. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but generally all US airlines offer a similar perk for their top customers. If you’re an ordinary member, however, even one with hundreds of thousands of miles in your account, you’ll almost certainly have to pay a (sometimes hefty) fee to cancel an award and restore your miles.


These fees vary from airline to airline, but expect to pay a few hundred dollars to get your miles back in your account. And while you’ll receive a refund for taxes, it’s unlikely that the airline will compensate you for any booking fees that you may have paid. With one exception.

During extreme weather, many airlines publish what’s referred to as a travel waiver. You’ll find this waiver under the “important notices” or airline status section of each carrier’s website, and phone and social media reps will be notified when they're in effect as well. Waivers typically only cover a specific airport or airports for certain dates, but if you’re flying from, through or to one of those airports, you’re eligible for rebooking. With heavy rain, it’s rare to see waivers cover more than one day, but major blizzards can result in very lengthy travel waivers. These bulletins enable customer service agents (and travel agents as well) to change your booking without any fees. You may have to pay a difference in fare, depending on the circumstances, but if you’re traveling on an award ticket that likely won’t apply.

The most obvious benefit is that you can use a waiver to cancel award tickets and redeposit miles without a fee, but one little know strategy is to take advantage of some airlines’ policies that allow you to change the date of any flight without a fee, as long as there’s award availability and the origin and destination remain the same. What you can do, then, is move up an award flight scheduled in the future to a date covered by the travel waiver. Then, when you call back to cancel the new award, you’ll be able to get a full refund for the ticket and avoid paying any additional fees. (Make sure you call back and don’t make this request of the same agent.) This technique only applies to award tickets and your experience may vary, but generally you should be successful.

You can also use a travel waiver to get flights that may not be available for award bookings. You’ll almost certainly be accommodated in this way if your flight is canceled or delayed for several hours, but you could even make a change under this policy simply based on a posted travel waiver. Use the technique above to move a flight forward, then call to change the booking. Note that this would only be possible with an award flight operated by the airline you used for the redemption, and some agents will refuse, but it may be possible.