There should be a sign saying, “Book at your own risk!” when it comes to travel right now. Due to a rolling series of international flight restrictions into Adelaide, I have been going through a series of book, cancel, rebook, change, which is resulting in cost creep.

For various items in my itinerary, a change means an additional fee. All of this is quite normal as I am now making changes fairly close to departure. I still don’t love it though!

Here’s Some Cost Creep

A good example of cost creep is an airport hotel we’ll call the Radisson. The original booking cost me €100 for the night, which is a decent price. On first rebooking, it went up to €115, and today it has gone up to €145. I am not surprised by this, as that’s how the system works when you book closer to the date you’re travelling, but still.


It’s a similar issue on an award flight. The original ticket cost me 8,800 Avios and €113 in cash. Fine! Due to the non-stop flights having no availability on the new date I have to travel, that was cancelled. Everything is refunded except for a €35 admin fee. The new award flights on an indirect service cost me 13,900 Avios and €200 in cash, which is more.

Helping Out The Travel Industry

Perhaps I should justify it by realising that every little bit I give is helping out needy airlines and hotels. That I don’t really mind at all, because I’ve been trying to give airlines my cash all year and keep getting flights cancelled.

This instance is solely down to the pandemic. Where should I send my bill? The South Australian Government? Some kind of religious figure who was responsible for the creation of the world (take your pick!)? Either way, it’s cash I won’t be seeing again.

Overall Thoughts

Remember the days of making a travel booking and then not giving it a second thought until it was time to check-in? I long for those days. At the moment, the barrage of cancellations is tiring.

While doing all these changes, another set of flights booked for next year were cancelled. Another call to the airline, another refund. In actual fact, I make more telephone calls to airlines than to friends and family right now, which is a bizarre situation. Oh well, one day things will get better.

Have you been having a similar experience of cost creep on changed bookings? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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Featured image by Rogean James Caleffi on Unsplash.