[6point3]

In the middle of October I was looking online to find a reasonable fare to Germany. It should have been cheap, who in his right mind goes there this time of year ??? I guess it might be more of them fleeing for a brief while.
Anyway here's the scoop:

L A to Frankfurt (RdT) cost $150 more than L A to Warsaw (Poland) stopover or change planes most of them in Germany, even Frankfurt) so I booked that and was going to skip the last part. In L A I asked them to only check my bag through to Frankfurt and they said, NO, they insisted I was changing the ticket and I would owe them another $1500. I paid $900 for the original ticket. So I told them check me through to Warsaw,...... and along the way (part 2 of the flight was through another Airline) I asked them to pull my bag in Frankfurt. Done.
BUT then they GOT me on my way back: The other airline could not check me in in Duesseldorf (that was the way the return ticket was routed) and since it was ticketed through Continental Air they (the other airline) had to charge me $450 to make it possible. If Continental had their own counter in Duesseldorf they would have ripped me a new (you know what).
Continental : never again. I will write a letter to United (since United bought and is merging with Continental) and explain the whole thing and if they don't refund me I will sue.
I never knew that just dropping a part of the flight would cost you more money.
COMMON SENSE would tell you, it's even money or I should get a refund, since I vacated a seat for them to sell again !!!
Everybody I ask , even the other airline agents agree with my point of view, only Continental did not and they had me by the ....
I would call that blackmail, really !!!

Any suggestions ??, please.

Which government agency overlooks ticketing practices and sales ?
Not the FAA ??

I bought this ticket online from a german travel agency and no contract or terms were signed !!

[jimworcs]

I am afraid you are unlikely to find any regulatory agency to help you with this. This is one of the most complained about issues, but the Terms and Conditions make it clear this is not permitted. You were lucky there was only a surchage...many airlines cancel the return altogether and unless you purchase a whole new ticket you are stranded.

It is hard to justify why they can do this. To me, if I buy a Happy Meal at McDonalds and refuse the toy, McDonalds are happy because they are 1 toy up and I am happy I don't have to throw the toy in the bin. It would be interesting to see what reaction they got if McDonalds charged more for the meal without the toy than with. However, I will give you the explanation that was given to me by BA regarding this.

Let's say the flight from LA to Warsaw direct costs $1,000. If Lufthansa, who need to feed passengers through their Frankfurt hub, charged $1,000 or more to Warsaw, noone would travel. Why change when you can do direct? To entice people to go via Frankfurt, they offer the fare at $900. However, the price for a direct flight to Frankfurt, for which demand is high, may be $1,000 or more. This is called dynamic pricing. The price of the ticket is determined by market forces and is demand led. However, the demand is determined over the whole route, not just one segment.

This was quickly spotted by frequent flyers in the 80s and 90s and the habit of throwing away a ticket segment became common. The savings, particularly in Business Class fares were massive. My complaint to BA involved a business class fare from NYC to LHR which was substantially more costly that a business class fare from NYC to Rome, via LHR. However, the airlines changed their Terms and Conditions to give them the right to cancel the ticket, or charge more, if you breach the ticket conditions by not taking the whole journey.

You agreed to this when you booked the ticket. Although you bought the ticket on a German travel site, there will be a catch-all tick box that you have read all the terms and conditions and agree to them. 99.9% of the people who buy a ticket don't read them...indeed, the time it would take would probably time out the transaction...but by agreeing you are stuck. The airlines T&C's are notoriously one sided, but I think there is no where to go with this complaint.

[6point3]

I appreciate the reply, I can see you took some time to write this up.

I am out of principle not giving up on this.
If a letter to Continental or United will not bring at least partial relief, then I will take this to small claims court.
It will cost them as much to send somebody to defend the case than I got charged more...either way , win or lose, I get my money's worth.
Since I did this transaction from MY computer in my town, I believe the venue would be the court in MY town.

I don't get, that the ticket to Warsaw through Frankfurt or whatever is cheaper than just to Frankfurt.
Is it that polish people wouldn't fly , because it's too expensive ?
Well tough, it's like going into a store and telling the salesman he has to drop the price, because I am low income and cannot afford it otherwise.
Guess what : you cannot afford it, then you can't buy it until you can afford it and pay that price.
By selling it cheap to the polish people you open up the possibility of having others buy it cheap.
That's normal market behavior.
If you think you can make rules and lock out others from buying it you're breaking some fair business or consumer protection laws I am sure .......

Anybody ??? , please.