Airlines - Go figure???

My hubby is travelling today. He started the morning in San Francisco. He had a meeting schedualed in San Diego. With all the wild fires and considering that the host had to evacuate to a safer locale, his meeting was cancelled. So, he called United to re-arrange his flights. He had 3 flights for today. First to San Diego, then back to San Francisco, and then home to Toronto.

He was told there was approximately a $200. charge to cancel the first 2 flights. So he says why bother cancelling them, he'll just take his flight home. He was told that he couldn't take the third leg of his travel if he didn't take the first 2 legs. Ok, so he had to still pay for the first 2 flights, even though he wasn't taking them, plus pay the cancellation charge so he can come home. The flights were all the type you couldn't change.

So I checked just before posting this, and the morning flight to San Diego has officially been cancelled by United. hmm, guess he could have waited for the flight to be cancelled for him, but he still would have needed to fly back from San Diego to be allowed on the third flight. I don't know, but this sounds odd to me. Perhaps I'm missing some small detail...