The real problem, $150 reward change fee, not the 500 minimum
C'mon guys, all this focus on the 500 miles has got people snowballed.
I realize there are mostly plats here, but if you're GOLD, you're paying $150 a change on reward tickets. IF you're gold you're paying the same exorbitant fee that some schmo who has nothing with CO except 25k MR points transferred in.
Why not something more reasonable? Especially for changing things like date/time/routing/carrier. Make a reasonable change $25 (or free). Refuding the miles, I could understand being $150, that's fine (though I still think for Golds its excessive)
If CO had the kind of inventory available that competitors, such as UA have, then this wouldn't be quite the same, but the fact is that CO has VERY little available >3 weeks out. Once CO has figured out they're not going to sell all the seats they start to open seats up. Until then, its tight, and you might be forced to choose inconvenient flights because that's all that is available.
also,
If CO is going to jack up the TLV prices 20k, they should allow routing via europe instead of just on EWR-TLVs. TLV via Europe is 120k Y 180k in C, which is way out of line with appropriate pricing.