Fuel Surcharge on AB award flight?
 

I'm seeing YQ of ~$70 on intra-Europe flights, and $140 on TATL flights operated by AB. This is when trying to book an award ticket on AB.com using AB miles. This contradicts the information I always heard on blogs, that AB doesn't charge YQ. Were they wrong? Is this new? Or a glitch? Or...?

They do indeed charge YQ and all other so called taxes. Sometimes even more than on revenue tickets.

Exactly!

I was about to use my award miles BUD-TXL during the recent promo when I noticed the YQ plus taxes were only a few Euros different than the revenue ticket. And I would have also used my miles.

Is this new? The blogsphere is littered with articles claiming AB imposes NO YQ on TATL flights, as recently as last year.

That's true if you use AAdvantage miles, or maybe even Avios, I believe. Not Topbonus miles.

The last time I tried there were two categories of tickets (two tabs in top right corner of fare selector). The first category required paying YQ, etc. The second category was all inclusive. It cost more points, but for intra-Europe flights on reasonably late notice, I found them quite a good redemption possibility (AFAIR 17500 miles for one way indirect intra-Europe flight, all "taxes" included is what I paid).

This is of course for Topbonus miles. I don't know about other programs.