I got a Click-N-Save email this morning and being the studious frugal flyer that I am, I priced out a booking I already made via the promo link to see if I'd get a discount or anything.
The trip would cost $.20 more - yes, 20 cents - if repriced today.
What's up with that?
I checked the old booking against the new, and the only difference is in tax on the fare (the fare itself is identical). The other fees all stay the same too.
Why did the tax jump from something like 11.73% in my original booking to 11.85% in the new booking with identical base fares on identical flights with otherwise identical fees?
The Passenger Flight Segment Tax started at $1.00 per segment in 1997 when Congress lowered the Federal Excise Tax (FET) from 10% to 9%. In 1998, the FET dropped to 8% and the Segment Tax increased to $2.00. In 1999, the FET dropped to 7.5%, where it remains today. The Segment Tax increased to $2.25 in 1999, $2.50 in 2000, $2.75 in 2001 and was $3.00 in 2002 and 2003.
Effective January 1, 2003, the segment tax was legislated to increase annually with the CPI, rounded up to the nearest dime. Congress reauthorized these taxes in August 1997 for a 10-year period beginning October 1, 1997. For tickets sold on, after 1/1/09, the segment tax increased from $3.50 to $3.60.
With regard to the other major "tax/fee" on airline tickets, the PFC: The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2007 -- which proposed increasing PFC's to a maximum of $7.00 -- apparently was never passed into law. I haven't had time to research any further as to whether there's a 2008 or alternative version pending, although as PFC's are still capped at $4.50, it appears no changes have been approved - yet.
I ran into this New Year's Day, rebooking a relative's flight. (Fare to her first choice airport finally dropped that day to $1 over her 2nd choice airport, versus the previous 57% premium.) It took a lot of time searching the InterWeb to figure out why WN wanted $1.10 instead of $1.00 to complete the change. When I finally found it I was going to start a thread about it figuring it would be asked here sooner or later.
I wonder how many times customers will rebook and owe just that $.10, and WN will have to pay a $.20 to $.30 credit card fee on the transaction. (I used TTF.)
Somebody forgot to tell the DING! department about the change. This morning's offer still says:
Quote:
Fares do not include a federal excise tax of up to $3.50 per takeoff and landing.
$3.50 still appears several other places on southwest.com.
$3.50 still appears several other places on southwest.com.
Google keeps finding many pages on southwest.com that state the old segment fee. (Most of those are dead links so the web site settings probably need to be tweaked to let the spiders know they are dead.) One in particular, though, is still live on southwest.com; for months now I've been trying to figure out why it persists in the index, but Google cannot find for me a single page on the InterWeb that links to it! I still haven't figured out how GoogleBot found that page, but the other day I did finally notice how to get to it other than via search; the "Show or Price" page and the final confirmation page both have hot links to it in the "Fare Type" column; the linked page explains DING!/WGA/Anytime/BS fare types.
(I didn't make clickable links to the page in question so as to avoid having this page become one that Google finds as pointing to it.)
Google keeps finding many pages on southwest.com that state the old segment fee. (Most of those are dead links so the web site settings probably need to be tweaked to let the spiders know they are dead.) One in particular, though, is still live on southwest.com; for months now I've been trying to figure out why it persists in the index, but Google cannot find for me a single page on the InterWeb that links to it! I still haven't figured out how GoogleBot found that page, but the other day I did finally notice how to get to it other than via search; the "Show or Price" page and the final confirmation page both have hot links to it in the "Fare Type" column; the linked page explains DING!/WGA/Anytime/BS fare types.
(I didn't make clickable links to the page in question so as to avoid having this page become one that Google finds as pointing to it.)
Thanks ftnoob -
I know exactly what page you are referring to, and will get it cleaned up today.
SWAVictor
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Victor Lucas | Associate Manager Marketing Solutions | Southwest Airlines
I think Victor and ftnoob need to publish a dictionary so the rest of us can understand their conversations. Now, it sounds like they are using telepathy.
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Brian Lusk, Manager Online Relationships & Special Projects, Southwest Airlines
http://my.flightmemory.com/SWABrian
I think Victor and ftnoob need to publish a dictionary so the rest of us can understand their conversations. Now, it sounds like they are using telepathy.
Wait - I'm getting a message now . .. . whats that? Oh, yes ftnoob, it has been corrected now - thanks again for bringing it to our attention.
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Victor Lucas | Associate Manager Marketing Solutions | Southwest Airlines
