US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Rerouting on Transatlantic 'L' fare

Travelling with my Uncle from LGW-PHL-LAS later this week and have come by a couple of DS0084s. I am aware that I can not upgrade as I am on an award but he was a terrific help to me throughout my childhood and I would like to repay him a little for that and get him into Envoy.

A dummy booking on USair.com show only 4 seats available in Envoy to PHL but CLT has around 16. I called US and enquired about rerouting my reservation through CLT, as I am on an award they said there'd be no change fee.

I then enquired about my uncle changing (paid 'L' fare). Agent said that US could not help with that as it was booked through agent they must reroute it for him.

I rang the agent who told me that after ticketing I'd have to pay £200 change fee.

Two questions:

1) Is the £200 fee believeable? i.e. must they actually have to cancel the ticket. Is this necessary for only rerouting.
2) If that is correct, then would US allow us to standby for travel on the earlier CLT flight for no/little charge??

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. If its any help I am US Gold and also a Club member.

Thanks in advance.

...because to my knowledge, in the US the change (or cancellation) fee has been $200 for some time.

Your 'ticket through an agency' - is the agency some sort of discounter or consolidator (eg ebookers, cheapflights)? If so these agencies sometimes organize steep discounts in exchange for guaranteeing bookings. The downside of this is that they typically have high change fees.

Regardless, the change fee on transatlantic tickets is high. I dont know exactly which fare you bought, but doing a search on the usairways.com website it looks like the usual change fee ex-LGW is 100 pounds (not 200). Sounds like your agency is as I described above.