A United Airlines spokesman declined to comment on the subject of intentional no-shows in general, a

His return ticket cost $134, plus baggage fees. But United s change fee, which was recently raised from $150 to $200, would have completely zeroed out the value of his credit. So he booked a one-way return flight on Southwest Airlines for $152 about the same as his original flight, including baggage fees and never looked back.
No one knows exactly how many passengers pull a no-show when their change fees exceed the value of their ticket credit, deliberately depriving an airline of its ability to resell their seats. But by almost all accounts, their numbers are rising, as airlines continue to raise the price of changing a nonrefundable airline ticket.
A United Airlines spokesman declined to comment on the subject anaheim ca hotel of intentional anaheim ca hotel no-shows in general, and Smith s case in particular. But it s hardly the only airline faced with customers anaheim ca hotel who are angry about elevated change fees.
When Laura Attwood wanted anaheim ca hotel to change her recent ticket on Alaska Airlines from Anchorage to Ketchikan to an earlier flight on the same day, the carrier told her that it would be happy to make the change as long as she paid a $100 fee. She refused, choosing instead to cash in miles for a new flight.
In fact, I checked anaheim ca hotel in and picked my seat on the flight I wasn t going to make, and confirmed it, says Attwood, who lives in Maple Bluff, Wis. That way, they couldn t resell anaheim ca hotel my seat. I was so mad that I had to pay a change fee.
An Alaska Airlines representative acknowledged that the airline experiences deliberate no-shows on some flights, although she wouldn t say how many. Yet its change fees are far more reasonable than those of other airlines. Alaska charges $75 for an online change and $100 if it s done through anaheim ca hotel a call center. Effective Oct. 30, its call-center change fee jumps to $125. But any changes made two months before a flight don t incur any fees.
The task of ensuring that these strategic absences aren t felt in the bottom line falls to airlines sophisticated revenue-management programs, which are designed to oversell anaheim ca hotel a flight based on a calculation that a certain number of passengers anaheim ca hotel won t show up.
On certain fares, and on certain routes, there will be a higher number of no-shows, says Warren Lieberman, president of the technology consulting firm Veritec Solutions and one of the pioneers in the field of airline revenue management. If they re selling tickets for $149, you can predict that more passengers will walk away from the fare, because the change fee is $200.
Yet airlines are making lots of money from change fees. The domestic airlines collected more than $2.5 billion in ticket-change fees in 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, up from $2.4 billion a year before.
But perhaps unwittingly, American carriers have also begun playing a cat-and-mouse game with their own customers, in which they raise fees, and passengers in turn try to sabotage the revenue-management systems by walking away from a ticket credit that has been partially or fully consumed by a change fee.
Subramanian says that passengers can avoid the game by making smarter booking choices. The preferred airline solution is to buy a fully refundable ticket. But those fares are typically priced anaheim ca hotel for business anaheim ca hotel travelers on an expense account and can be three to four times as expensive as a nonrefundable ticket.
He recommends looking for a so-called flexible fare, which some airlines offer a special ticket that includes the benefit of waiving certain surcharges and would allow you to change your plans without having to pay a $200 fee.
The long-term solution, of course, is for both sides to practice a little restraint. Already, airlines such as Alaska and JetBlue have shown that there s some middle ground, and their experience anaheim ca hotel suggests that passengers are willing to accept some fees, as long as they re reasonable. Southwest Airlines seems to confound even the experts by having no change fees at all.