Sveiki! I’m back from Latvia
By Darren Cronian on Saturday, April 21st, 2007

I’m back! A great week in Latvia was had, and a ton [more than a ton] of emails from consumers and travel companies, so bear with me whilst I get through them. Going through a few of the emails, there are a few rants from consumers regarding the price airlines are charging for small changes to the names on flight tickets.

Sveiki! I'm back from Latvia

I do think a nominal admin fee should be charged, but not some of the fee’s I’ve heard. You’ll be glad to know that the £14 a night hotel, turned out to be a good choice, and no lost baggage, a few language problems, but I got talking with some locals, who were very friendly and wanted to help me enjoy the city, which helps when travelling alone.

More about my trip soon.


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4 responses to “Sveiki! I’m back from Latvia”

Alex | 21 April, 2007 at 8:55 am

The “issue” that airlines are aiming to stop is a travel agent booking a flight (early at a low price), holding it, and then reselling the flight to one of their customers at a new name - at the original price…. so putting a name change charge effectively stops that.

The fee therefore has to be large enough to create a commercial barrier for travel agents to stop doing this. If it were only a small or nominal charge - it would be still be worthwhile holding from the travel agents perspective.

The “middle of the road” should be that name changes that are obviously corrections (initial wrong, surname one letter wrong) should perhaps attract a lower admin charge - as this is mistake correction - not prebooking flights. (There are costs associated with this to the airline too - as name changes will have to be checked against no-fly lists etc…. and this is why you can’t change your flying name at the last minute).

In summary- the rate that the “admin fee” is set at therefore isn’t designed to reflect the actual cost of the change (in terms of staff time) (although it does) - but to reduce the propensity for pre-purchase / sell on.

Darren Cronian | 21 April, 2007 at 12:02 pm

That’s a good point Alex re. the travel agency, I’d not thought of that.

Rohan | 21 April, 2007 at 12:19 pm

Welcome back Darren.

I look forward to hear all about your trip.

I’ve heard Latvia is a beautiful country, but don’t know anyone who has been.

Mike | 25 April, 2007 at 10:32 pm

The countries of Eastern Europe fascinate me a lot. I’ve heard Latvia is great as is Slovenia. Still somewhat poor but they’ll catch up to the rest of Europe.

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