averind

I am looking at Chicago-Istanbul award tickets. The taxes and fees comes out to be a shocking $220.

Now I am looking at the very same award flight through United Airlines and this time the taxes and fees comes up as $2.5 in total. What is the point of having a membership to this program if these taxes and fees are this high?

LH4116

Award rates are low, so that does to me justify the hight cost of the "taxes".

averind

United airlines asks for 30k miles for the very same flight while THY is asking for 32.5k miles.

eefor jfp

Almost all FF programs except the US-based ones charge outrageous taxes on award tickets. Miles and More (LH) on the same route is easily over $500 round trip. And BA can go up to $1000 for first class itineraries involving two long hauls. It's the whole "fuel surcharge" (YQ) scheme the airlines use to separate out this component and ding you on award redemptions. Those of us not living in the US don't like and rail against it but we're no longer surprised by it. And we even rationalize that for a first or business class award, it's "worth it" to get what we get. But for economy class award tickets, the taxes can easily come to half the price of just buying the ticket outright which usually makes those redemptions a poor value (and there are even exceptions here).

mecabq

Right, $220 doesn't seem so bad. I booked a DL award between LHR and JFK (shockingly, there were both Y and J seats available at low mileage), and the taxes/fees were around $600. It seems like the U.K. is a special case, but I would be pretty happy to pay $220 for a trans-Atlantic award, all things considered.

Mwenenzi

Real taxes are exactly the same for all airlines. But some carriers have carrier imposed surcharges (~profit).

Never confuse real taxes and carrier imposed surcharges (YQ etc). Those that do are playing into the airlines game. (Hidden deception ?)

UK has the APD, based on class & distance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Passenger_Duty

gojko88

I would be ecstatic if LH offered me TATL tickets in Economy with taxes of only 220$! It's usually around 500-600$...

wolfman888

Air Canada charges over $700 in scam taxes/fees/surcharges for an award to Europe, so Turkish sounds not too bad. Also, I just talked to a Canadian on a plane, and he said AC wanted $900 in scam fees for award travel between Vancouver and somewhere in the U.S. .....I find it hard to believe actually.....

why fly

I think Air Canada came up with these charges and talked other airlines into doing the same.

smashe

I know that I can book with TK miles other star alliance carrier award flights i.e. if I use my TK miles to book a United award flight - do I need to pay the tax which I normally have to pay with TK award ticket or this way I can avoid them when I book a flight with united?
Thanks for the answer

YuropFlyer

Miles & More (also known as Miles&Less) from Lufthansa will easily charge you 800$ for a simple FRA-PEK flight.. (business class)

So no, Turkish Miles&Smiles is definitely NOT outrageous, they're rather fair. Only US-american carriers do charge less usually. M&S is very comperative compared to most European and Asian carriers.

nacho

That's why I'm not with M&M any longer - their fees are insane - they want EUR 99 for intra Europe award flights - their revenue tickets can be bought at EUR 100 sometimes.

The same with Air Berlin - when I bought their revenue ticket the base fare is EUR 5.

TK - it's the usual BS YQ, nothing outrageous since most airlines are like this nowadays.

If you want cheap YQ - go for SK Eurobonus, no YQ on their own metal award flights. However you have to use Eurobonus miles to redeem the ticket, so if you book via TK you still have to pay for YQ.

I think the best use of M&S miles is to buy cheap Y then do an upgrade with miles.

averind

Using TK miles on a partner used to be pretty hard, things might have changed after June 1st (at least that's what they kept bragging about with "New miles & smiles"). But you still have to give them a call and I am pretty skeptical the customer service yet knows how to do it...

Cavit Yardim

As a rule of thumb, I avoid traveling on any airline that splits its fares into fare and some sort of airline imposed fee or (sur)charge, etc. TK has skyhigh insurance and fuel fee built into its revenue tickets ~$550+ and up.

I bet the same is added to reward ticket for TK operated TK flights when issued by TK Miles&Smiles. IMO This is exactly why, TK Miles&Smiles does not qoute cash portion upfront along with miles needed. And you are not allowed to move to next page without having enough miles in the Miles&Smiles account already.

BTW, this practice is illegal in Canada but somehow has remained unnoticed by the Canadian Transport Agency. Canadian law requires full upfront qoute inclusive of all airlines charges.

sliiide

Can you find the YQ and any other charges added by the airline by looking at the fare-breakdown on ITA Matrix? Or is there something not shown there that the airlines vary and add on?