Useful Tool: U.S. Domestic Airline Fee Chart

The people at Farecompare.com have a handy little chart to compare the fees levied by various U.S. airlines on their domestic flights. Using it, you can compare the extra cost of a reservation by phone, charges for first and second piece of luggage, seat selection fees, beverage, snack, meal charges, overweight bag charges, pet travel, unaccompanied minors, curbside checkin, and standard change fees. They update it fairly regularly.

We learned, for example, that the change fees on most domestic airlines average $100-150 So far, Delta is the last of the legacy carriers not charging for the first bag, although AirTran, Alaska, Frontier, JetBlue, Southwest, Virgin America and Sun Country also do not. This may be subject to change.