I haven't flown United since 2007. However, I bought a ticket on United last summer. 10 days notice. Two days after I bought it they announced a "schedule change." My non-stop from LAX to Seattle had become a 9-hour layover in Phoenix. Also, the plane type had changed. Curious, I looked to see if United was still flying the leg I was on. Guess what? The same plane was still flying from LAX to Seattle at the exact time and date I had booked... except the flight number was different. And the ticket price had gone from $120 to $1477. United tried to argue that they weren't going to refund my fare because fuck you, that's why, if I wanted on the flight I'd bought I could pay $1477 (after all, my ticket was non-refundable). So I dug into their boilerplate and turns out, even though they wish you didn't read it, it says that if they add a layover with schedule changes you get out no-fuss, no muss. When I pointed this out to United (while also pointing out that my ticket was bought with a credit card that says "ALASKA AIRLINES" across the front) they said they'd get the money back to me in 4-6 weeks. I told 'em they had 'til the end of the day before I reversed charges on the credit card. Money was miraculously reversed an hour later. Fuck United.
Clarifying: what you can do is "dispute charges." What the credit card can do is "reverse charges." The credit cards work because consumers trust them. As such, credit cards will shit all over a merchant before they'll upset a consumer. They won't aid fraud, however. They've got an agreement with you and they've got an agreement with them and they've got verbiage in both agreements that says they're the final arbiter of all disputes but because of that whole "trust" thing they'll side with you if you can make a half-way decent case that you were wronged. I've probably disputed credit card charges a half-dozen times in my life. They've always gone in my favor. The biggest one was a mechanic that charged me $1700 without fixing the problem; worse than that, they didn't hook my heater hoses back up so my car vomited all of its coolant all over Ventura blvd. and started overheating again. That one took a 3-page essay with photographs. The smallest one was against Radio Shack that refused to honor a money-back guarantee on a soldering iron that straight-up didn't light. If you can copy-paste an agreement in which they expressly state they will do what they expressly aren't doing, the process moves at a brisk pace.
I love your writing. Basically, what you did is warn them before engaging into a tiresome legal dispute - is that what you did? is that why they played nice?worse than that, they didn't hook my heater hoses back up so my car vomited all of its coolant all over Ventura blvd. and started overheating again.
What I did was remind them that they were going to lose the money either way; it was their choice whether they wanted to be magnanimous or petulant about it. Magnanimous almost always wins. After all, if you choose to give the money back, you're in control. Just ask any 4-year-old.