Originally Posted by
thepla
I am one of the people that believes there should be a penalty for changing a ticket. I remember when it was $50, than $75 for a short,time $100, etc. Since I am buying a ticker that is not refundable I should pay the coffer to change.
Now do I think $150 is starting to be the typical we don't want to be in the airplane business but the fee business, of course.
Before $50, it was $35. And before that... It started at $25 (this was 1992), and it was *not* a penalty for changing a non-refundable ticket. The whole reusable ticket system was a repudiation of the previous "penalty" system, where nonrefundable tickets had not been not reusable at all, just refunded 25, 50, or 75 percent. The new $25 fee was a notional cover for the cost of reissuing a paper ticket.
Somewhere along the way, it became all about the revenue generating. It's a whole extra line of business, "selling" changes for $150.