TRAVELSIG

I have an upcoming flight to DEL and am bringing along Ms. TRAVELSIG so I decided to use some of my M&M miles. I do use M&M miles quite often and am well aware of the fees and surcharges. A new record however: $609.88 USD in "taxes and fees" for a roundtrip VCE/DEL. That is not a typo: $609.88. Given that the paid ticket was 1549 EUR allin (both tickets are in business class) this is a good way to calculate what miles are now worth as this is a 105K redemption.

Now here is the more curious part: I was wondering what it would cost if I used Privilege Club QR miles for the same itin on QR (VCE/DEL) which was available: $98 USD.

Interesting how different the "taxes" can be on two tickets with the same O&D points.

M&M makes it easier all the time to choose...

Hippo72

MUC-FRA-DTW-FRA-MUC in I is 483,50€ ($594) for my trip this week.

TRAVELSIG

Absurd.

Flygirl_DE

no, LH-reality

TRAVELSIG

To call it "taxes" when it is really "revenue directly to LH group" should be illegal in the EU.

CZBB

Try an AC booking across the atlantic in J. You're looking at 800-900$ with the fuel surcharge greatly exceeding the per-seat fuel cost.

hugolover

I totally agree, the only way to fix it is to complain. Unless I am mistaken you could try Siim Kallas.

The airlines pay expensive lobbyists and the vast majority of national regulators are useless because they have no powers or don't want to use them.

cochinjew

MiA-KUL Biz AF/KL close to 1000 dollars in tax and fees.

LonLH

Last year I paid around 550 GBP per pax LON-ZRH-BOM on LX F, so nothing unusual with the taxes there..
In hindsight, should have paid GBP 1300 and burned 8 e vouchers instead- (did not need status miles last year).

red star

Easy to beat. NRT-FRA-ZRH rt in O all on LH: 704,72€

macabus

With few options left for *A award travel in F, I paid $769 in taxes/fees through Aeroplan for this trip last week:

PHX-DFW: US-F
DFW-FRA: LH-F
FRA-MUC: LH-C
MUC-KBP: LH-C
KBP-VIE: OS-C
VIE-ZRH: LX-C
ZRH-OPO: LX-C
OPO-FRA: LH-C
FRA-DFW: LH-F
DFW-PHX: US-F

TRAVELSIG

Exactly what I am thinking now.

So a miles ticket is more like an AD75 now as opposed to a free ticket.

I can understand some fees however when they become more than 25% of a business fare it is not really an incentive any longer.

txl

Discussions about this topic seem to have always been somewhat halfhearted, so I assume that the charges are perfectly legal. Could one of our lawyers elaborate?

RTW1

The law doesn't really come into play with this.... they can charge anything they want. But that doesn't make it a good and decent thing to do.

whiskey_sk

I'm not a lawyer, but if the 'fuel surcharge' is a tax, it should be refundable, also for E fare buckets. If it is not refundable, because it is not a tax, then it should not be levied on award tix. That appears as a reasonable assumption to me.