The fare difference works in both directions. Sometimes the fare on the newer flight is less, so you only end up paying a small or no fee to change, other times it's higher. It kind of evens out in the end, if you ask me.

The other thing to consider when the fare on the flight you want to change to is higher is that you would have had to pay more money in the first place to get a changeable ticket that would be valid for that flight. That may be confusing, so here's an example:

You're booked on flight 1, $100 fare.

You want to change to flight 3, $300 fare.

AA wants change fee and fare difference to make the change, $100 fee and $200 fare = $300.

If flight 3 has a high demand, and AA is able to sell fares at $300, the only time it would make sense to sell tickets that would be valid for either flight would be if AA were getting at least $300, probably more because of the added flexibility. So maybe the fare is now $350 for an unrestricted ticket.

Again, this is what happens when there are multiple fares in the market. Granted, I'd be happy if the maxmiums came down a little bit; I think I'd do a lot more travel if I could be sitting here saying, "I want to get out of town this weekend" and just book a flight leaving tomorrow at a reasonable rate. I think we need to press the airlines on this; and they're already getting the message because there are less businesses out there buying $2000 one way tickest. But it's never going to be some utopia where the lowest fare and changeable fare are only $100-200 different, at least not in many markets.

Bottom line here is that I think most people who are paying for their own travel want the lowest possible fare, not an unrestricted ticket, and they don't want to pay any change fees either. And they're going to complain if they don't get both.

d