We changed our 2 November flights on AA from SXM to Aruba yesterday. Even though their web site says that it must be same origin and same destination, there were no change fees, we just paid the $20 difference per ticket, cost us a total of $40 for the two of us to make the change.

We are AAdvantage Gold, but I asked if that was the reason that the change fee was waived, and they said no - there would not be any change fees for anyone who was scheduled to fly to SXM before year end and wanted to change their AA ticket to fly somewhere else.