Yes, my dad was traveling on an award ticket that I bought for him. I tried to change it online for him earlier in the day, (>3 hrs) and it asked for 10k more miles and $150 in change fees... Then when we got to the airport, it said it would be $50 to SDC. The theory that there must be award seats on the flights may be likely in this case, since I know that there were award seats on the flights available.