Originally Posted by
armouredant
The spirit of a capitalism is that you'll be charged whatever they can get away with charging you. The idea being that you can vote with your wallet.
This is the key point - they charge it because they can. They probably reckon most people won't notice or care until it's too late, and their FFs won't change airline because of just this, when they are locked in to BA.
Originally Posted by
armouredant
Cancellation fees exist because if there was no penalty for cancelling, there'd be no mechanism to dissuade passengers from booking every flight they might want to take, and then electing not to fly (or pay) at your leisure. Basic revenue protection requires something to stop that from happening.
This is simply not true. I regularly fly UA who don't charge cancellation fees, however, their software prevents overlapping bookings.