Delta - failure to disclose

When the grandfather of my friend's husband died just recently they were quickly figuring out how to fly (without spending their daughter's college tuition money) from Washington D.C. to Austin, TX for the funeral. The first thing they did was check various airlines for bereavement fares.

Southwest - "We treat everyone equally. All last minute tickets are sold at last minute prices."

Delta - "We don't sell bereavement fares. Then, why do you have on your website to call this number to ask about bereavement fares?"

Finally, my friends decided to cash in credit card miles through American Express in order to get their airline tickets. The American Express lady was so nice that she even made the phone calls to various airlines to determine what flights were available for immediate departure to make it to the funeral. It turned out Delta had the best schedule that met their needs. One ironic thing though, delta refused to be tied into a conference call so the American Express lady was the go-between. She would talk to Delta, then repeat the information Delta said to my friends. Once the miles were transferred, my friends called Delta directly to process the transaction and were quite surprised when Delta told them there would be $200 in fees and a credit card was needed. They were not informed by Delta of the high cost in fees prior to transferring the miles over to Delta. And now, that the miles were transferred, there was nothing that could be done about that. Other airlines has fees that were much less than $200 to process late last minute frequent flyer travel.

After a much heated discussion, the ticket agent reduced the fees to $50 and my friends made it to the funeral.

Why? Why do companies insist on sticking it you without fully disclosing increased prices, fees, etc? I'm shocked that so many people are willing to put up with this and not take the time to fight against it.

Update: October 4, 2007

It turns out that Delta charged my friends the complete $200 and when they called to inquire about the full charge the lady refused to reduce it back to $50 even though the notes on the account said that $50 would be charged. My friend's husband promptly wrote a letter to Delta's management about the situation.