Fees

Excellent idea! Drive and spare the airline staff of your bogan attitude. Or better yet fly Virgin/Tiger/Qantas and good luck changing the name as NONE of them allow name changes UNLESS you purchase a flexible ticket which costs an arm and a leg. Bloody whinger. Read your fare rules next time. Changes to time, date, AND name will be subject to a change fee per sector and any possible fare difference meaning if you're booking for a new person you pay the difference for the current rates.

Yes $220 for 2 tickets, change the name on one costs $270 sounds reasonable.. read the rules.. why not make it $2700 ?? That would be reasonable too?

Tell me - do the terms and conditions list the fees and charges?

Danna - Did taxpayers pay all those taxes years ago to have a govt air service (that's what an airline used to be - an air service) in the guise as TAA, for it to become Qantas, and starting from that privileged position the organisation went public, gave birth to Jetstar, a company that can apparently charge the general public anything and do anything?

BTW - I think there's still free speech in Australia - maybe one day Jetstar will start a re-education camp for people who don't agree with Jetstar's terms and conditions but currently people are free to vent on this website without being called a whinger or a bogan or some such. (the implication being that anyone who disagrees has less intelligence / culture)

@ Jetstar sucks - yes read the terms and conditions and next time choose another airline. Tell your friends.

Of course Dr. Phil replies... So nice to see you again.

As Phil may or may not be aware, pretty much everything we do in life is subject to rules and regulations. If you don't like them, don't continue to use the company. And please don't give me your bank fees story again.

$270 would have included a $50 change fee per sector ($100) and $170 of fare differential (lets say $85 extra per sector). Being that the original flights were $110 each person ($55 per way)... this would mean the fare at the time the name change was being made was $140 each way. Perhaps "Jetstar sucks" would prefer to be in the same situation with Virgin, Tiger or Qantas in which case they would all say "sorry, name changes are not allowed on this ticket". Which means a loss of the originally purchased $110 fare.
The problem is people jumping on the bandwagon when they see sales notifications ($55 to Newcastle from Gold Coast) and book and then crack it when they have to pay to change date/name. Guess what, Jetstar is a business NOT a charity or government air service, and most of the time it is still cheaper than most counterparts. Go and complain to Oprah.

I'll now draw your attention to the following from the fare rules:

# Only date, time and passenger name changes are permitted (except passenger name changes are not permitted on Any Seat Award bookings), subject to availability. Changes to the origin or destination of travel are not permitted.
# Your new fare will be at least the amount of the fare you originally booked, and may be more. At the time your Booking is changed you must pay the difference (if any) between the fare you originally booked and the fare available on the date of the change. This will apply to all permitted date, time and passenger name changes. Any fare difference paid when changing your booking is non-refundable. The fare difference may be substantial.
# In addition to any fare difference that may be payable, a non-refundable change fee applies to each passenger flight segment changed.

Note that it stipulates the fare difference MAY be substantial. The fees are easily retrievable from the Fare Information page which is accessible from the home page. Name me ANY airline that lists the change fees in the fare rules themselves. They always say something such as "current fees available on our fees page."

If we had it your way, Jetstar and Qantas would be one of the many world airlines in serious financial trouble ie. British Airways, Japan Airlines etc.

@ Danna - As I see it the fare rules don't come with a schedule of fees. Basically people are agreeing to some price they aren't told about until after the fact. Are any of the fees listed in the terms & conditions?

Phil, again I ask you this. Name me ANY airline that lists the actual fees inside the fare rules. I highly suspect you won't find a single airline. Fees and charges are available on separate pages.

I stand corrected. Tiger list the change fee for changing a name. Not for changing a date.

@ Danna - So actually it isn't about terms and conditions- in fact most people complaining on this website would probably admit they expected some fee or charge, the 'surprise' comes when they find out how 'great' that actual fee is compared to the original ticket price. Banks and Telcos usually publish a schedule of fees. I can't really see how anyone can be expected to legally 'accept' the terms and conditions when they don't know what the terms (fees, charges and rates) actually are.

You continue to amaze me Phil. Why don't you start a similar site to this for Virgin? Their change fees are higher. How long will will it take for you to accept the cost of running an airline is astronomical? If you manage to get a sale fare, all well and good. If you stuff around and have to change dates/names, expect to pay much more. It's really not difficult and I don't think it's that unreasonable. Again, like I said, if we had it your way, Qantas Group would be in the same financial difficulty as British Airways and others. I'm so sick of arguing with you to be honest. You know, I once spoke to an airport staff member. She said to me "Most people are alright. Some just don't get it." You my friend fall into the latter category.

Sorry Danna - I get it. I have 4 Virgin flights coming up this week. If I have a bad experience with Virgin I promise I will let you know. What I do get that you don't- is that Jetstar are pushing to own and control the market. They're employing 1920's style personnel management strategies.. and very poor levels of customer satisfaction. Look up the Qantas annual report, divide the number of passengers for each by number of employees- Jetstar deal with approx 4 times as any customers as a Qantas employee on average. Consumers are suckers.. cheap milk is a method by which one supermarket chain tries to control a segment, Jetstar are doing the same and it's the consumer and employee who will ultimately lose out. Jetstar profits are though the roof, and the management will retire on a huge bonus and leave what could be a credible airline service in a mess.