The change rules on the major airlines really are annoying. I've heard that they mostly bring in revenue from biz travellers -- leisure travellers just suck it up and fly. That's why the fee keeps going higher. At $150, a lot of fares are basically non-refundable.

It would be nice is somebody came up with a consumer-friendly modification to this. Like what if you had a lower change fee for roundtrip tickets that contained a Saturday night stay? Heck, the airlines might even make a buck off that because they could sell you higher bucket fares.

I'd love to see someone model this and test it.

And it would prevent so many "bad luck" situations like this one.