Exorbitant charges to change travel plans

[hardtolose]

I hope you can all see my angry face and the steam coming out of my ears. Haven't posted since asking about best seat choices on 747s back in May. All bookings were made through travel agent which we don't usually do but wanted best options as we bought RTW Business tickets with Qantas and AA.
After a few weeks we heard from the friend we were going to stay with for a couple of days north of Miami that we could fly direct from DFW to their hometown in Florida with AA. So we called agent and asked how much to change as she had previously told us that there would be a small charge (about $50) on each ticket if we wanted to change anything.
Have just heard back......$490 PER TICKET!!!!!!!!!!!. I am so angry!!!!!!!!. We can fly into Miami as originally planned and hire a car for three days and do a squillion other things for that. BUT it would have been so much easier for us and our friends if we didn't have to do it that way. This is the sort of thing that make people say they will never fly with WHATEVER airline again.
We are not rich but wanted some comfort for this long trip as it will probably be our last overseas trip and this just puts a nasty taste in your mouth.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Has she told you why it is more than the $50 she stated originally?

 

[straitman]

Could you still fly into MIA and then get an add on Domestic flight to/from where your friends live :?:

 

[Cocitus23]

I suspect that you will find that the $50 was the cost of changing a flight to a different time or day, without changing the sequence of cities visited. Once you change the routing it complicates things and the fees for change increase. You really need to think out your required route before you book these tickets.

As Straitman says, you could probably buy domestic air tickets from and to MIA more cheaply than those charges. Check out prices on expedia.com. Another alternative is to rent a car from MIA. Car rentals are relatively cheap in USA (again, check on expedia), and the Interstate Highway system is easy and quick.

I'm not sure where you want to get to, but I gather that AA flies there, so for what it's worth here are the distances in miles and recommended driving times (courtesy of Rand McNally software) from MIA to other AA destinations in Florida:

Fort Myers 155m, 2h32m.
Tampa 277m, 4h23m.
Tallahassee 483m, 7h32m.
Orlando 236m, 3h45m.
Jacksonville 348m, 5h29m

I hope that is of some help.

Cocitus23.

 

[Dave Noble]

Really need to know what type of ticket was purchased and what the current routing was and what the proposed one is to know if it is reaosnable

It could be that the flights u want to book do not have appropriate availability and the cost of purchasing them is high or could be that you have reached the limit of domestic flights allowed