I'm flying from IAH to EGE in December (out on 11th, return on 18th). Continental's schedule is seasonal to EGE, and they didn't have any flights prior to the 16th (or thereabouts), but they did have the return leg. I purchased a one way outbound ticket on AA (thru DFW) and a one way return ticket on CO (non-stop).

Well, now Continental has added the outbound leg to their schedule and it is available.

For several reasons (schedule, stop at DFW, baggage fees, and different terminals at IAH), I would be willing to eat the AA ticket and purchase the outbound CO leg.

A round trip ticket on CO is currently selling for $268 ($148 more than I paid for the one way return), and the one way outbound ticket is $504 (they're currently only offering the Y fare bucket for one way tickets).

I called and I couldn't get them to add the outbound without waiving the $150 change fee per person, which I'm not going to pay. They had a supervisor look it up, and since they couldn't find where it said they had to waive the change fee, they wouldn't. I didn't expect that it would be explicitly written anywhere, but I thought there was a decent chance they would waive it in order to sell me the outbound tickets.

It's frustrating, in that I would have purchased this itinerary in the first place, if they had made it available earlier. Also, I'm not trying to change flights, I'm trying to purchase a ticket they wouldn't sell me the first time around. I understand change fees, but this seems like a situation in which they would waive the fee (it's additional business that they're not going to get unless they waive the fee, and CO is the reason that it wasn't booked that way in the first place).

Has anyone ever had a similar situation, and if so, did they ever budge on the change fee.