Tenacious

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

APRIL 28, 2011

What's the price of "free" at airlines these days? Your next frequent-flier award flight may cost you $800 or more in fuel surcharges on top of your thousands of hard-earned miles.
Airlines outside the U.S. have run fuel surcharges up to high-altitude levels and charge them, plus taxes and government fees, even when you redeem miles for frequent-flier awards. You also get charged in some cases when you use your U.S. airline miles for a ticket on a partner airline, such as redeeming American Airlines AAdvantage miles for seats on partner British Airways, or using Delta Air Lines miles for a trip originating in Europe. The sneaky surcharge may even surprise you when you exchange credit-card points into an airline program to claim "free" travel.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...063898096.html

chanp

Glad to see it on a mainstream media paper, but doubt there will be good change.

azepine00

I really hope the government would step in and force the airlines to make "free" ticket actually free. Recent DOT ruling on airfares gives a bit of hope.

Steve M

As far as "fuel surcharges", I agree. But as for all the other fees, I'm not so sure.

For example, in the US, for domestic award travel, award tickets used to be completely free, prior to the "9/11 security charge." US law specifically exempts award tickets from having to pay any PFC's that airports assess, but specifically *requires* that airlines collect the new $2.50/takeoff (up to 2 per direction) from *all*passengers. So, when a passenger books a round-trip award ticket on a US domestic non-stop route, the $5 they must pay is due to government mandate.

GUWonder

For airlines that charge such high fees and surcharges on mileage tickets that the cash component cost of the "award" ticket may exceed the cost of a regular paid ticket for travel between the same city pairs, the use of "award" or "reward" being used by the airline or airline partner's marketing efforts seems a scam when, for various situations, the passenger's cost of the "award"/"reward" ticket exceeds their cost of a regular ticket not using miles.

As a growing number of passengers are -- "courtesy" of the airline -- being fined/subjected to the airline's penalty when using miles for tickets, it would be rather amusing if the government were to subject such airlines and their program partners for a fine and/or other penalty too for using "award"/"reward" when it is not always less costly than a regular paid ticket for travel between the same city pairs.

nacho

Airlines should really include fuel surcharge in the actual ticket price. I think this 'surcharge' is to devaluate the value of mileage.

GUWonder

Well, it does devalue the miles. The reasons (in no particular order) for the "fuel surcharge" approach being taken by the airlines: to reduce value of commissions granted to travel agents; to reduce the value of the rebates/discounts granted to large customers; to reduce the value of the rebate/discounts granted to the ordinary customers, a rebate that comes in the form of the "loyalty" program "awards"; and to reduce the airline's costs to change prices (retail and wholesale) quickly and rather efficiently.

Absent government intervention, the airlines will be doing more of this rather than less of this. And the customers of the airline "loyalty" programs are not going to be spared from this; rather customers of such programs will be increasingly financially speared by this approach -- more so those customers who earn their miles mostly from flights for flights.

MatthewLAX

Not when fuel surcharges can be excised with a little work!

But the $800 in taxes on BD awards does get old fast...

azepine00

I haven't found a single useful "excise" for the travel i needed to take since 2009. Random mileage dumps may help MR but exceptionally limited in application even for those familiar with subject.

MatthewLAX

Maybe, but I take advantage of them quite often when I travel across the pond.

aap

BA has some of the best routes to Central Asia via Europe, but I will not fly them due to the ridiculous fuel surcharges.

These fuel surcharges should be displayed upfront without having to go to the checkout screen to find out your 50K award ticket will cost $500 in fuel surcharges.

This kind of reminds of the APR issue with the mortgages where every lender shows the same interest rate, but the true cost is not known until you compare APRs. Wish there was something equivalent the FF world.

mrx900

Why would the govt help the very same people who it helps to reinforce all these ridiculous fees? The govt is the corporations best friend now.

Tenacious

^

DBCme

Hope other mainstream media picks up on this. I've been coaching people with 100k BA miles to redeem in other less costly ways (ie: AA Domestic).

gobluetwo

I agree completely with this! Greater transparency would be great. ^