Need a little help on the taxes usually charged on a business class flight to Europe using ANA miles. I can search for award availability just fine using their online tool and know that it is only 68,000 miles for JFK-FRA-ZAG round trip in business (great deal), but it won't tell me the taxes/fees associated with the flight as I don't currently have enough miles in my account.
I don't want to transfer the miles over from Amex if the fees are approaching British Airways levels, so if someone could give me a ballpark estimate that would really help out.
kazuwox
Apr 27, 12, 10:07 am
Tried a dummy award booking thru NH website
Tax and surcharges is total JPY 85310 in the following itinerary -
Not easy to find an availability on C-class, need skill to find the inventory
or adjust your schedule to their availability.
1USD is approx JPY 82-83 now, hence the total cost is above USD1000:td:.
Hope this survey helps.
metzgersdog26
Apr 27, 12, 10:52 am
Tried a dummy award booking thru NH website
Tax and surcharges is total JPY 85310 in the following itinerary -
Not easy to find an availability on C-class, need skill to find the inventory
or adjust your schedule to their availability.
1USD is approx JPY 82-83 now, hence the total cost is above USD1000:td:.
Hope this survey helps.
Thanks for running the sample booking kazuwox. Any chance you can run one in economy class as well to see if that drops the fees?
$1050 in extra fees absolutely kills this. British airways isn't even that bad. What happened to jack this up so high - I know a year ago this redemption was around $450 in fees - still way more than the $102.90 for booking the same itinerary w/ united miles, but more manageable.
arcticbull
Apr 27, 12, 12:36 pm
Generally what they do is charge you all taxes, fees, YQ and YR that would appear on the exact revenue booking. Try using matrix.itasoftware.com, search round-trip, origin JFK, destination ZAG, on your dates. Then in Advanced Routing Codes specify F:YYnnnn F:YYnnnn where YY is your carrier and nnnn is the flight number.
Select the price and look at the breakdown. Anything in the XT (combined taxes and fees -- that is everything other than your fare/basis) is what you'd pay on your trip.
You should be able to get away with ~$200 in taxes and fees if you limit your travel to United or US Air. At least this is how things work with the other Star Alliance partners.
Also if you have BA miles consider flying Aer Lingus JFK-DUB/SNN-ZAG (if that's a valid routing and there's space -- check availability using the United website). They will not charge you fuel surcharges on EI flights. [Edit: EI doesn't fly into ZAG. That would only get you as far as DUB/SNN]
Best of luck!
metzgersdog26
Apr 27, 12, 1:54 pm
Generally what they do is charge you all taxes, fees, YQ and YR that would appear on the exact revenue booking. Try using matrix.itasoftware.com, search round-trip, origin JFK, destination ZAG, on your dates. Then in Advanced Routing Codes specify F:YYnnnn F:YYnnnn where YY is your carrier and nnnn is the flight number.
Select the price and look at the breakdown. Anything in the XT (combined taxes and fees -- that is everything other than your fare/basis) is what you'd pay on your trip.
You should be able to get away with ~$200 in taxes and fees if you limit your travel to United or US Air. At least this is how things work with the other Star Alliance partners.
Also if you have BA miles consider flying Aer Lingus JFK-DUB/SNN-ZAG (if that's a valid routing and there's space -- check availability using the United website). They will not charge you fuel surcharges on EI flights. [Edit: EI doesn't fly into ZAG. That would only get you as far as DUB/SNN]
Best of luck!
Crunched it out for my flights and that tool lists all my taxes and fees for a normal revenue ticket at $1002, which about what Kazuwox came up with. Dropping down to economy is $693, which isn't much better. How can ANA justify charging literally 10x in fees compared the identical itinerary using United miles?
Unfortunately the only carrier I can find with some availability with is Lufthansa. I might be able scrounge something on Swiss, but I'm guessing they would be just as bad on taxes.
arcticbull
Apr 27, 12, 2:21 pm
I agree, YQ/YR is an incredible pain in the ....
So since you'd be saving some $800 per ticket, you may consider flying into a different european city on an airline that doesn't chart YQ, and then buying a cheap round-trip on a european low-cost carrier.
(1) Fly UA from JFK to literally anywhere in Europe :)
(2) Buy a round-trip rail or LCC ticket.
That way you can even consider your arrival city a free stopover. Spend a day or two there if you're flexible. What dates are you looking at, out of curiosity?
FWIW, UA charges $0 YQ/YR, LOT (LOT) charges only ~$320YQ, and Turkish (TK) charges ~350YR. This is much lower than Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian's $806YQ.
See if you can make something out of that. Try a multi-city itinerary, or a round trip to a different european city in combination with a low-cost carrier. It is, after all, only the transatlantic leg that will set you back any big money most of the time.
metzgersdog26
Apr 27, 12, 3:19 pm
I agree, YQ/YR is an incredible pain in the ....
So since you'd be saving some $800 per ticket, you may consider flying into a different european city on an airline that doesn't chart YQ, and then buying a cheap round-trip on a european low-cost carrier.
(1) Fly UA from JFK to literally anywhere in Europe :)
(2) Buy a round-trip rail or LCC ticket.
That way you can even consider your arrival city a free stopover. Spend a day or two there if you're flexible. What dates are you looking at, out of curiosity?
FWIW, UA charges $0 YQ/YR, LOT (LOT) charges only ~$320YQ, and Turkish (TK) charges ~350YR. This is much lower than Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian's $806YQ.
See if you can make something out of that. Try a multi-city itinerary, or a round trip to a different european city in combination with a low-cost carrier. It is, after all, only the transatlantic leg that will set you back any big money most of the time.
Ah here we go. Seems like you have just a little experience dealing these... pleasantries. Time wise I'm looking at a 4-5 day trip in Croatia for either weekend in mid-July. Departing 7/12 and returning 7/18 had availability on Lufthansa, as did 7/17-7/23.
From looking now I'm seeing a JFK-MUC seat on United available on 7/12, but not much coming back. Any idea which JFK-europe routes on United would have the best summer availability?
Don't like the "buy a connecting ticket separately" because of the 3+ hour layover you need to pad in, but its looks like its the only real option.
Just checked out Air Canada as another option for transferring Amex points to, but apparently they're getting slammed with fuel surcharges over there now too.
icchan4970
Apr 27, 12, 5:22 pm
To reduce the surcharge, I suggest minimizing LH flight.
When I booked an award ticket including NRT-FRA round trip (NH) and four LH flights (FRA-AMS round trip and FRA-LHR round trip, the surcharge for four intra-Europe flights was more than that of NRT-FRA round trip.
That was a quite surprise.
arcticbull
Apr 27, 12, 11:13 pm
So you should try the following booking with ANA. The Taxes and Fees on Aeroplan work out to $396.50, and as such, should be very similar on ANA.
This way you're only paying YQ on the outbound flight, not on the return. Also, the return flight US701 is actually on their A330 with Envoy suites. The hard product is supposedly fantastic -- the service is in traditional US Air style :P
Like I said, should fare out to ~$400. Not a bad deal in this day and age, on your travel dates of choice. I say if you can get ANA on board, book it!
metzgersdog26
Apr 30, 12, 7:26 am
Was that only Aeroplan that didn't charge YQ on United, or ANA as well? Just for a dummy booking I was looking at EWR-AMS on UA metal (5/23-5/28). Using UA miles the taxes were $59.60, but as per usual I couldn't get an estimate on ANA's or Aeroplan's sites.
arcticbull
Apr 30, 12, 8:40 pm
Was that only Aeroplan that didn't charge YQ on United, or ANA as well? Just for a dummy booking I was looking at EWR-AMS on UA metal (5/23-5/28). Using UA miles the taxes were $59.60, but as per usual I couldn't get an estimate on ANA's or Aeroplan's sites.
Good question. It may be worth calling and asking. If you find out, report back!
metzgersdog26
May 1, 12, 7:39 am
Good question. It may be worth calling and asking. If you find out, report back!
Man, that award availability dried up FAST. Both transatlantic segments in business are gone.
Bad timing too, as I realized I could get an upcoming SFO-JFK segment on part of the same ticket by using a stopover in NYC.
So apparently aeroplan DOESN'T charge YQ on united, although ANA still does. For the EWR-AMS example it was $580 in taxes on ANA (and 43k miles) vs ~$90 in taxes (and 60k miles) on aeroplan.