We are in the process of trying to change the date of one leg or our travel from Providence to California. This was booked through Travelocity which adds a whole new layer of difficulty. The basic rebooking fees are now something like $180 from the airlines and $30 from Travelocity. When you get this high, it is in the range of being cheaper and easier to get a new one-way ticket to replace one leg of your trip.
Dealing with Travelocity is difficult for this as you are talking to clerks in India that don't understand the complexities and have difficulty doing this. It takes so long to do this that the airfares will tend to change before the transaction can be completed.
In addition to this, the airlines claim that buying a new ticket for one leg is not legal and they will charge you for not using the unused portion, or cancel the return trip if you don't use the first flight (by buying a new cheaper ticket). I can understand that there can be last minute issues with reselling a ticket, but we are trying to do this more than 2 months in advance. Also, I am willing to tell the airline that I will not use one leg of a ticket well in advance. There should at least be limiting laws that, if I can buy a cheaper ticket than they charge for rebooking, I should be free to do so (provided I tell them what parts of the flight I still intend to use). There should be limiting fees for rebooking, say $100 max for the airline and $30 for the Travel service if you are changing your flight more than a month in advance. The airlines are trying to extort high fees once they have you locked into a flight!
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