If CO offers to sell me a ticket that's valid for 1-year, then surely it's their responsibility to ensure that all dates within the 1-year window are available at the time the ticket is issued (within reasonable means, of course). A couple of things seriously undermine the lure of this offer:

First, their system opens up dates for only 330 days from the day the ticket is issued. This means I simply won't be able to take full advantage of the 1-year window. This defeats the purpose of saying the ticket is valid for a year.

Second, I understand that sometimes, seats just aren't available. But I'm not convinced that back in Aug 07 when my ticket was issued, securing an I class seat for Jun 08 was out of the question. I'll grant that it's possible I class was full then, but it's very hard to believe.

Now, all of this wouldn't stink if CO didn't insist on slapping a fee for changing dates. If CO couldn't book me on my desired return date either because it was beyond the 330-day mark or no seats were available (again, hard to believe), then they're obliged to waive the fee under these circumstances. I think that's fair.