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Outrageous Change Fee
The Travel Troubleshooter · July 5, 2002

Q: I booked a one-way ticket on Continental Airlines from Newark to Atlanta recently. My original ticket cost about $80. However, I later learned I had to leave a day earlier. I thought I could just stand by for a flight but was told no. I then tried to change my ticket. But the $100 change fee makes any ticket whose original price is under $100 worthless.

In order to get another ticket, I would have had to pay $60 - the difference between the tickets - plus the $100 fee. In other words, it would be cheaper for me to buy another ticket. Which is what I did (on Delta - the time was better).

I like Continental, especially the easy access to the terminal in Newark. However, a dumb rule like this makes me skeptical. Why should you have a change fee that's more than the value of the ticket?

-- Norman Oder

A: Continental feels your pain, but it also feels its own pain (last quarter it suffered a net loss of $166 million). The airline offered to let you use the value of your one-way ticket towards the purchase of another ticket, but it won’t budge on the change fee.

I encountered a similar problem on a recent Continental flight from Miami to Newark. I wanted to switch to a flight that left a few hours earlier, but the gate agent said I’d have to shell out a $100 change fee, which was almost as much as the ticket had cost. She said since Sept. 11, the airline had quietly tightened its change policies. Not only is the airline clamping down on last-minute changes at the gate, but if you miss your flight, you could get stuck with a change fee, too.

Does the policy make sense? From an airline’s point of view it does. More fees mean more money. Revenues derived from change fees and other surcharges accounted for $445 million last year (the same as the previous year) according to Continental. But from a passenger’s point of view, this is a silly policy that can only be seen as a ploy to squeeze more money out of you. I don’t think this is what CEO Gordon Bethune had in mind when he touted Continental’s “commitment to great customer service.” But I could be wrong.

It’s no small irony that an airline can delay or cancel a flight with little or no remuneration to the passenger. But if you’re late for a flight, you could get charged a change fee that might be more than the value of your ticket. There is something very wrong with this picture – and very unfair.

You did the right thing by switching carriers. The way Continental enforces its change policy is easily the most customer-hostile in the business, and a completely inappropriate way of thanking you for your business.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator based in Key Largo, Fla. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion. The Travel Troubleshooter appears weekly on this site.