[gbook56]

My daughter is currently in Seville, Spain, as part of a summer abroad. We set up her travel as a round trip from Dallas to Seville, with a stop in Madrid. Unfortunately, we did not know at the time that her group would already be in Madrid on her return date.

Okay, so all she has to do is use the Madrid to Dallas portion of the trip, right? No, if she doesn't show up for the Seville to Madrid leg, her whole itinerary will be canceled. Fortunately, we knew that, so we tried to make the simple change of dropping the first portion.

Unfortunately, rather than accepting the reality that this is still the same trip, but with a portion "given back", the airline -- American, in this case -- uses the fiction that it's a totally new reservation. So even though my daughter already has a seat on the Madrid to Dallas flight, if we want to make the change we have to: (1) pay a $250 fee to make the "change", and (2) pay another $1000 for the current Madrid to Dallas flight.

So, my daughter is instead going to have to go back to Seville so that she can go Seville to Dallas. And we'll have to hope they get her to Madrid in time to make her connecting flight.

Now, I have since heard that this is standard practice by the airline industry. I say it's bad business, and why should we put up with it just because "they all do it"?

I suggest that since we can't realistically boycott the whole industry, perhaps we ought to single out a particular airline -- flying any other airline unless that is the only one going to a given location -- until at least that airline rethinks its strategy. If we can't deal with them all at once, let's deal with them one at a time.

For my part, I will simply not be flying American Airlines anymore. Nor will my wife, and I've suggested to her that she encourage her colleagues (she's in the oilfield services sector) to do likewise. So what if "everybody does this", that was never a good excuse for my daughter ... why should it be for the airline? It's wrong, and it should stop.