[Iciclehead]

All,

Wife and I going on a vacation with an unnamed European airline, the flight was from North America to a European hub, with a 1 week stayover, then ongoing to another destination, return to the hub for a further two weeks and then back home.

Turns out that we do not want to take the second and third leg of the trip, just stay at the hub for the duration.

Called the airline to tell them this and then the crap started. They said, well, the original destination was the endpoint of Leg 1 and Leg 2, we were changing the endpoint to just be the hub, so we had to cancel the ticket ($450 per ticket), and then, even though they are business class tickets that we bought on a business class seat sale, we now have to rebook at current prices....an extra $1500 per ticket.

So to NOT take the second and third flight will cost us $1950 each on a ticket that only cost us $2700 each to start with!

Now, this was a discussion with their telephone ticketing centre, we left the tickets as they are and are reconsidering our plans, but really...is this the way all airlines work?

If I insisted on calling a supervisor, would a higher order brain function at least come back with an answer of $0, and thank you for notifying us so that we can resell the unused seats to other passengers.

Or will I just get myself into a whole heap of trouble with them, particularly if I get the stomach flu or something and happen to just not make the second and third legs of the flights.

Anyone with experience in this and recommendations as to how to handle it?

Dennis