The truism that possession is 99% of the law stands true here. Once the airline takes your money they don't want to give it back. If they want to charge you 200 bucks for a cancellation fee, there's not much you can do about it. To bring this topic one step further, why do airlines only give you one year to redeem your ticket, or you are completely out of luck? In this situation, they provided nothing to you and keep everything!

Actually, a number of airlines have changed the one year limit on exchanging nonrefundable tickets. UA and AA now have no time limit, DL and US have a 2 year limit.

You can still let friends fly on the ticket; just check in at the airport and then hand them the ticket. Assuming the party to whom you're giving the ticket is of the same sex they'll have NO problem on the return flight providing you give him/her a valid photo ID; the agents NEVER look at the pictures, they only marginally match the name up with the ticket. I emphasize that this is not illegal (at least on the outbound portion) but does violate all FF program rules so at worst you'd get bounced.

Or, if you're not sure you're going to be able to use a ticket just buy on-line with an expired credit card -- as a top tier flyer they invariably will force the fare later when I call the day prior to departure and play dumb "what happened to my electronic ticket?" Sleazy yes, but so are the airlines...

While this is not a consolation, United at least is making an effort. I purchased an online ticket on the UAL website today for my sister. After purchasing the ticket, I realized that I had her going out the wrong day of the week. I wasn't too terribly concerned about the $75.00 change fee, as this was a work related business trip.

After making the changes, the reservationist never asked for a credit card number for the change fee, which I thought was odd, so I asked about it - I was trying to be honest. She indicated that about a year ago, they did away with the $75.00 change fee for any changes made to a ticket within 24 hours of purchase. While most of us may make changes later on during a trip, it was nice this change benefited me, and others who were able to catch a mistake, or make changes within the timeframes imposed.

Most travel agents can void a nonrefundable ticket within the same calendar week in which it was purchased - sometimes even until Monday morning of the subsequent week. They may charge a fee, but it will be a lot less than the $75 to do an exchange.

yes that is true, jerryff, that happened to me a few times, and she never charged me... it pays to build a good working relationship with a knowledgeable travel agent... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Tino:
I really don't give a crap as to what South West air does with their own tickets the fact is they are taking losses all the time...I got into a big 75.00 change with with a passenger the other day, he decided since he was close to boston he would drive...I spent 30 minutes of my freaking time with that idiot, explaining to him why there was a fee for a routing change. I had to tell him that he purchased a segment from JFK to BOS, he said he was doing us a favor and letting someone else take his seat....ohh no no no...I made him..its part of the rules..get over it people 75.00USD is nothing maybe later I will suggest to the airlines to raise to 100+...We as american people take to much for granted...maybe we need to learn from the europeans...and thats a fact!!!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by vikinglova:
[B]Tino:
I really don't give a crap as to what South West air does with their own tickets the fact is they are taking losses all the time...

Southwest is the only airline that has shown a profit every single year since it started back in the early 1970's. They must be doing something right.

If Airlines only pay travel agents 5% to book and issue a ticket and they cap this at $50.00 max, why do they charge you $75.00 for them to reissue a ticket?????

Here is the airline's rationale for the $75 service charge. Please don't interpret my posting as agreement with it - just an explanation.

Originally, the change fee was $25, then it was raised to $35, then $50, then $75. In addition to being a way to just generate more revenue, the high change fee is related to people using back-to-back tickets. You need to make 2 mid-week trips about 3 weeks apart. So you buy a couple of back-to backs (on different airlines to avoid potential problems). You are sure of the dates of the first trip but not the 2nd. Once the 2nd trip is set, you just pay the change fee in each direction and save a lot of money.

Obviously, the airlines don't like this (understatement?) and so they have gradually raised the change fee to discourage this type of practice, or at least to make it more expensive.

If I read vikinglova's post correctly, airlines charge $75 because it's part of the rules and therefore ok, we (the consumers) are idiots, and besides $75 is "nothing." (Everything is relative.) As for learning from the Europeans, I hope VL does not mean learning to accept subpar service, inattentive sales clerks, and unresponsive monopolies. There's much to appreciate in Europe - the level of customer service in many European countries, and customers' tolerance of it, is surely not one of them.

Since most of the trips I fly are less than $500 advance fares (unless UA sucker-punches me on a walkup fare), the $75 is a huge penalty, especially since there are competitors that do -not- charge it.

Maybe if it is that one annual vacation Mom and Pop take, $75 is not much. I make 60-80 business trips and 20-25 leisure trips a year. Paying to change is serious money, and due to my job, I end up changing about a third of my flights. You can tell your marketing department that people actively avoid their airline because of it.

Please raise your change fee, forcing more and more tickets to be "throwaways". It will only help SWA as people get screwed and learn their lesson. Make it $500!

In addition, what is the "cost" to put FF miles back into an account? Is it near $75 as well?