Long update ...

Well, I decided to do the return date change and pay the extra surcharge in exchange for a sense of certainty. It's the first time dealing with this travel agent and let's just say I won' be using them again. First, they told me the change date fee is $150 + weekend fee $25 + agent fee $50. Then, they asked for $125 by credit card and $100 by cash. Then, they came back with an extra $50 fee because of increase in fuel surcharge. I called CX and found out as of 8/1, there is an increase fuel charge of 10.60 out of LAX per leg. That doesn't add up to $50 extra.

After adding it up, total should be $246.60. I agreed to pay an extra $125 by credit card and have the $100 in cash returned for a total of $250.

I originally had e-ticket but the agent re-issued as paper ticket.

Now, my credit card company tells me that the agent made 2 charges, $74.15 and $252 but the credit card company rejected the $252. It's suspicious that I signed 2 credit card receipts, each $125 and the amount charged against my credit card account is not the same amount. Right now, only the $74.15 is a valid charge against my credit card account.

Anyway, I tried to decipher the fee codes on the paper ticket to figure out where the $74.15 came from. There is an increase of $21.60 (fuel surcharge as expected) and $28.50 (weekend fare as expected) and remainder of $24.45 (possibly paper ticket fee?). I can't explain why there is no change date charge of $150 as I was told. Could it be there was never suppose to be a change date fee as Christep mentioned earlier about no fee for changing date/time before departing?

Because of this suspcious credit card event with a charge rejected by my credit card company, should I worry about the validity of my paper ticket even though it has already been issued to me? I called CX and I'm in their system so far.