American Airlines is making it cheaper in some cases for passengers to change their flight on the same day of travel, for instance to fly home earlier after meetings are over or move to a later flight if things come up.

They used to charge $75 to do this, waiving the fee for their top Platinum Pro and Executive Platinum status members. Now they’ve introduced dynamic pricing, offering same day changes starting at $50, as noted by aviation watchdog JonNYC who says this is expected to both be better for customers and generate more revenue for American (since passengers may opt to pay rather than stand by for free).

AA: SDFC is moving to a dynamic pricing model for non-elites, and will actually become cheaper for confirmed changes. The calculus is to capture more $$ (for something passengers get for free if they’re accommodated on standby), and cull the revenue standby lists.

— 🇺🇦 JonNYC 🇺🇦 (@xJonNYC) July 5, 2023

This is offered in the U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands as well as Canada, the Caribbean, and between and through New York and London Heathrow (where standby is not permitted). And in some cases the cost could be higher than before, since it is dynamic now rather than fixed.

According to American Airlines,

We’re pleased to offer customers the option to change their flight on the same day of travel for a fee as low as $50 as we know travel plans sometimes change. As a reminder, AAdvantage members with Platinum Pro status or higher receive same-day travel confirmed changes for free when available.

American’s same day change policy is still uncompetitive with other airlines and unreasonably restrictive, however.

• American has the most hubs and biggest domestic network, but customers can’t use it. In order to make a confirmed same day change to get home earlier, you have to keep the same number of connections (no switching from a connecting itinerary to non-stop or vice versa) and you have to connect through the same hubs.

• Routing changes aren’t allowed, but that often means there aren’t flights you’re eligible to change to. There may be open seats that would get you home early, but you can’t use the flights because they’d connect you through a different city.

• You can’t same day change into a lower cabin (first class passengers can’t same day change to economy).

• And you can only make a same day change when specific inventory is available. That’s the ‘E’ fare bucket. So there may be seats available, and seats even if the same fare class as your ticket, but if American doesn’t make specific inventory for same day changes available you won’t be able to do it.

No other major airline is as restrictive with same day changes as American Airlines, so a little liberalization on price in some cases seems like the smallest step possible.