Lufthansa Draconian Fee & Tax Charges
 

I booked a RT flight on Lufthansa for travel from Boston, MA, USA through Frankfurt to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia last May 2011, which I had to cancel due to a change in work plans. Lufthansa gave me a credit for the flight cost ($1,593.18 USD), and informed me that there would be a rebooking fee of $250 USD due to the fare class used on that reservation. I used this reserved amount to book a RT flight this February (2012) from Boston to Oslo, Norway. The cost for this flight is: $871.96 USD, which is $721.22 dollars less than the original flight that was cancelled. However, when reserving the current Bostton/Oslo flight in January, the booking agent still charged me $290.78 USD for the change fee plus taxes, despite the fact that I have already overpaid by over $700. She said that there was nothing she could do. To add insult to injury, since my (originally scheduled) flight to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was almost $1,600, the taxes I paid for that trip were larger than the taxes for the (currently scheduled trip) - a triple penalty: way overpaid for the trip, still charged a booking fee and assessed yet more taxes even though I have already paid too much taxes in the first place! I informed Lufthansa customer relations online about this problem, but they said they do not deal with "these types of problems"! This is a truly draconian business practice, that - as an owner of multiple businesses and a frequent flyer - I am amazed. I generally have liked Lufthansa's service over the years, but this is truly unfair business practices. While I am not looking for a refund of the unused portion of my original ticket, I do hope that Lufthansa will do the right thing and refund these truly unreasonable and unjust fees.