( Tribune Media Services ) -- The airline tickets Marianne Ellis buys for a family vacation to Tanzania are refundable with a change fee , but her online travel agent fails to tell her that the fee is about a quarter of the cost of the ticket . Now that she has to cancel , will she lose thousands of dollars ? Q : We recently bought five tickets for a family vacation in Tanzania through Cheapoair.com , an online travel agency . A few months later , we found out our daughter would be starting a new job and could n't make the trip with us . So we phoned Cheapoair to cancel our reservation . When we booked the tickets , a Cheapoair representative told us the tickets were nonrefundable and that if we canceled and used our credit to rebook another flight , we would have to pay a penalty . But I was never told how much the penalty would be . Cheapoair consulted with Northwest Airlines , which agreed to a full refund of all five tickets , which had cost us $ 2,271 each . Cheapoair then charged us $ 535 per ticket in cancellation fees . I asked the agency for a breakdown , and it said the fees represented $ 410 to Northwest , $ 75 to the consolidator and $ 50 to Cheapoair . A Cheapoair representative said that when you buy this type of fare and have to cancel , the penalty fees are enormous because the airlines want to recoup their lost revenue . We have accepted our responsibility in the cancellation , but think $ 535 per ticket is excessive . Can you help ? -- Marianne Ellis , Sacramento , California . A : This could have turned out much worse . Your airline could have pocketed all of your money , and you would have been out of luck . Cheapoair sells what are known as `` consolidator '' fares that are often less expensive than the tickets you buy through a traditional travel agent or by booking directly . The reason ? It works through a ticket wholesaler that buys tickets in bulk at a big discount . Then it marks up the ticket prices enough to make a profit while still undercutting other published fares . But that 's not all . Consolidator tickets typically come with more restrictions than the garden-variety nonrefundable tickets sold by airlines . While some can be canceled and re-used for a future purchase after paying a change fee , others are completely nonrefundable and non-changeable . Meaning that if you have second thoughts about your vacation , your ticket 's gone . I do n't understand why you would n't ask your online travel agent for details on the change fees -- particularly if your daughter is either contemplating a new job or looking for work . If there 's even a chance you 'll have to cancel your ticket , a consolidator fare is n't the way to go . You should have considered a ticket with more reasonable change fees ( although `` reasonable '' is relative -- Northwest charged a $ 150 fee for international reservations at the time you bought your tickets , which is excessive to a lot of people ) . I also think the Cheapoair representative with whom you spoke should have warned you about the change fees before you bought the tickets . This might have also been avoided by booking the tickets online , where such terms would presumably be clearly disclosed , instead of calling Cheapoair . But not necessarily . I 've seen more than my share of confusing booking screens where important details are buried three screens under a hundred offers to rent a car or reserve a hotel room . I would n't have phoned the online agency after being asked to pay these cancellation fees . Instead , a quick e-mail to feedback @ cheapoair.com may have yielded better results . Trust me on this : do n't call -- e-mail . I agree that $ 535 in cancellation charges is a little rich , so I contacted Cheapoair on your behalf . I heard back from Sneharthi Roy , the company 's senior vice president of operations , who verified that this was a consolidator fare and that the fees were in line with what the company charges . Still , Cheapoair asked its consolidator to waive the fees on your behalf . And it did . You 've received a full refund -- a total of $ 11,355 -- from Cheapoair . Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine . E-mail him at celliott @ ngs.org . Copyright 2009 CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT , DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES , INC .
Customer purchased nonrefundable airline tickets through Cheapoair . The company informed the customer a penalty would be charged for cancellation . The penalty increased to $ 50 per ticket , which the customer considered excessive . Fees were in line with company policy , but the company agreed to a full refund .