kylejaymes

I am sure that they do not even come close to that of AirMiles for the routing I use, and their flights would at least be non-stop.

newfbc

Had a telephone conversation with a 'high up' Air Miles rep today about the West Jet Fuel surcharge 'ding'. Satisfied with the response. I've been assured that Air Miles are going to work with West Jet to let people know more about these fees before booking.

Ron.

tcook052

I am very sure they do and there is no shortage of FTers on the AC forum who would tell you as much. Those two linked threads are the mere tip of the unsatisfaction iceberg when it comes to Aeroplan and sky high surcharges & fees on AC award tix. But you're new and will find these truths to be self evident with a little bit of time and effort and FT searches.

FlyerJ

OK, to clarify, here's exactly what I got and what I paid.

For those who say Aeroplan's just as bad, that does not appear to be the case!

I also booked an Aeroplan reward seat a few days ago, and what a difference. (Both redemptions were done this month, so the time frame is the same.) Details also below.

Air Miles redemption: YYC-YYZ (Westjet)
Points redeemed: 3300 Air Miles
$ payment req'd for reward flight: $203.86
Cost to buy the companion ticket on same itinerary (all in): $553.51
Award flight cost as % of full purchase cost: 37%
Wait time on phone (on hold) to book my reward flight: about an hour!!

Aeroplan redemption: YYC-PHX (AC/US)
Points redeemed: 25000 Aeroplan pts
$ payment req'd for reward flight: $57.51 (agent waived the Aeroplan phone booking fee because of a problem booking my itinerary online)
Cost to buy the companion ticket (all in) on same itinerary: C$452.87
Award flight cost as % of full purchase cost: 13%
Wait time on phone (on hold) to book my reward flight: zero -- my call was answered on the second ring (after about a minute going through a voice prompt menu). (I've been Aeroplan Basic for a few years -- this was the regular phone line. From my experience, it's not the norm for the Aeroplan call center -- but I'll happliy take it!)

No mention at all of any fuel surcharge in any of these bookings (neither the paid nor points bookings on either trip) in the price breakdowns.

Bottom line:
Airmiles charged me $200 in fees/taxes on a domestic flight that's worth $550. That's 37% of cost of rev ticket. Paying $200+ is hardly a "reward" -- instead, it sounds more like cashing in my 3300 miles just got me the ability to buy a discounted "seat sale" ticket from them.

Aeroplan charged me $50 in fees/taxes on a cross-border flight that's worth $450. Paid 13% of cost of rev ticket. Pretty decent. I'd actually categorize that as a "reward" ticket!

So I ask my question again: are Airmiles fees/charges truly legit?? Or are they just out to lunch with what they make their customers pay in addition to the points we have to redeem?

And I have to admit that I'm totally confused by the "fuel surcharge" discussion here -- Westjet doesn't charge one if you buy a ticket, but they do charge one to Airmiles when they buy a ticket?

tcook052

Was this award ticket on the US nonstop YYC-PHX? When you say AC/US what was your routing? The reason I ask if historically AC's *A partners have always had much lower award taxes & fees, including fuel surcharges as was noted in this post, than redeeming on AC itself due to the different corporate divisions that were created when AC spun off AP.

I'd be curious to see the side-by-side example for an AM & AP award domestically, then transborder and international on matching routes to get a better look at the comparisons asn while I appreciate your experience it's not quite comparing apples to apples, at least not IMHO.

Great White North

This is part of the reason I've given up on using Air Miles for flights. Instead, I've been using them for hotel stays getting much more value per air mile.

Elli

For which hotels are you using Air Miles? TIA

YYC Guy

I still just don't get how this can be a "fuel surcharge" -- but maybe it's just me?!

1. Westjet doesn't charge a "fuel surcharge". If I understand correctly, others here say that Westjet does have a "fuel surcharge", but you never see it because they've rolled it in to their base airfare. Which, methinks, means it's not a "surcharge". It's just plain ol' "airfare". If they're now designating some hidden part of their base fare as a fuel component, well, that's just a shell game.

2. What you and I have to pay out in $ to Air Miles is ultimately Air Miles' decision. Period. They can't blame the airline. Air Miles / Loyalty Group buys a huge volume of tickets from Westjet, and then "resells" them to us when we cash in our points. Who determines which fees/taxes/surcharges/tithes/etc Air Miles will in turn make their customers pay? Air Miles. And only Air Miles. It's entirely up to them.

Some programs (the "SPG Flights" program, for example) choose to charge $0 in fees/taxes/surcharges/etc on those exact same flights. Others, though I don't know if they exist, could feasibly choose to charge their customers even more for redemptions on Westjet flights. It's 100% up to the program operator.

For Air Miles to say, "ehhhh, sorry about that highway robbery thing, but it's really Westjet's fault thanks to their high fuel surcharge" is - again - nothing but a shell game.

Now imagine if you were cashing in your Marriott, Hilton or Starwood points for a reward stay. When checking out - after happily redeeming your points and feeling like a valued member of a loyalty program - you get hit with a $75 bill . . . $5 for an elevator fee, $6.40 for a ventilation charge, $10 for a "toilet paper and plumbing surcharge", $30 for housekeeping, plus a $1 vacuum bag surcharge, and on and on and on. Sound ridiculous? Well, it's exactly what Air Miles does to its customers on their flight redemptions! (Some here have suggested that Aeroplan does the same thing to people depending on the route. That doesn't make it right, and I'll leave that up to the Air Canada forum to debate.) And thankfully Air Miles doesn't (yet) ding their collectors like that for AM hotel stays.

(And did I mention it seems all too much like a shell game?)

robsaw

Wrong.

1. AC and Westjet both charge a Fuel Surcharge on North American "award" tickets on their metal. An AC flight can be on a partner airline, in which case, no fuel surcharge. It is buried in the retail fare but is still there. Yes, it is a shell game.

2. Airmiles can only legally charge their $25 fee over-and-above what they pass-on in flow through in fees and taxes. To do otherwise would be fraud, plain and simple.

YYC Guy

It's buried in the retail fare? Then, as I tried to point out, it is not by definition a "sur"charge.

If something's charged on top of the retail fare, it's a surcharge. If it's IN the retail fare, then it's, well, it IS the retail fare.

Ultimately if you agree that it's a numbers shell game, then I think you must agree with my basic premise (and therefore can't call me "Wrong"! )


First of all, a "flow through" would be, by definition, a defined cost paid to an outside party, where the exact sum goes to that party (not Air Miles, not Westjet) for a specified item. That could legitimately be an AIF, or a customs inspection user fee. "Fuel surcharge", though, is airline revenue -- pure and simple. It's not paid directly to Shell or Esso. It's not a flow through.

Ultimately, though, I think you misunderstood me. Air Miles does not "have" to pass on any tax or surcharge to their end customer. Flow-through or not. That's entirely their choice. And they've chosen to ding their customers hard. They don't have to charge a $25 service fee. That also is entirely their choice. They don't have to charge you separately for AIFs, or customs fees, or "fuel". Everything that they require their customer to pay is their choice -- nobody else's. If I book a flight using RBC Avion points, I pay $0 out of pocket. That's RBC's choice. If I book a flight on SPG Flights, I pay $0 out of pocket. That's Starwood's choice. If I book a flight on Air Miles, I need a to get a second mortgage. That's Air Mile's choice.

As for more than a $25 charge being legally constituted as "fraud", I'm not sure what legal basis that has. They could choose to charge a $1000 service fee on every booking if they wanted. But that would probably take them well past the "tipping point" (which arguably they're teetering on right now).

But while we're on the topic of fraud-like activity, part of my dislike of Air Miles stems from an incident a few years ago. I was cashing in my Air Miles for a flight. After picking the flight, the agent (quite quickly) told me, "The total charge for your fees, taxes and insurance will be $X. What credit card do you want to use?", where X was an even-more-massive-than-normal sum. And we hadn't even discussed travel insurance. She was simply trying to get me to give her my credit card number and take their insurance unknowingly. I called her on it. She stammered - seemed quite surprised that I caught her - and then eventually lowered my price to just the fees/taxes, sans insurance. I haven't trusted them since.

tcook052

FWIW the negative option, as it's called, is not "fraud-like activity". You were able to decline the optional insurance and in fact did so the more correct term should IMHO be caveat emptor, let the buyer beware.

YYC Guy

Negative option selling? Fraud-like activity? You say tomat-oe, I say tomat-oh.

No, of course it's not "fraud". But it is a very sleazy way for Air Miles to try to sell travel insurance to their customers (or for anybody to sell anything, for that matter).

(In my case, the travel insurance wasn't presented to me as an "option". Nor was it even discussed at all. Rather, the Air Miles rep just wanted to get my credit card number as quickly as possible. It certainly felt like she was trying to swindle me into buying something without my knowledge or true consent.)

Just one more reason, IMHO, that Air Miles is awful, awful, awful for flight redemptions.

Spex

Wow, reading this thread is like experiencing a bad case of deja-vu

I redeemed some airmiles for a YOW-YVR return flight on WS and when all the taxes/fees/insurance was included, I ended up paying about 50% of what it would have cost me had I paid cash for the tickets. First and last time I use airmiles for airfaire.

So, I guess the consensus is that gift cards are the way to go with airmiles? What about hotels?

(sorry if the last part is off topic)

tcook052

If it isn't fraud or anything close then why use that particular F word? FWIW I've redeemed for air tickets and in my case was given the cost of the optional insurance and the hardsell but declined it at that point while agent was building my file and it was not presented as your was.

I use my AM account for gift cards exclusively nowadays regardless of whether they're actually the best value as its what works for me. Of course YMMV.

FlyerJ

Well, I guess it's nice to know that I'm not the only one feels like they were hosed by the nice people at Airmiles.

If I understand all of the replies to my post here, (a) yes, I was charged an exorbitant, ridiculous amount of money for "fees and taxes" by Airmiles, but (b) that's just how Airmiles operates, and by some fluke of airfare-structure-accounting, they're perfectly within their rights to charge me what they did. So definitely "my bad" for using Air Miles for a "reward" flight, which I will NEVER do again.

As one reply here said, caveat emptor - let the buyer beware.

On a related note, I have far less motivation to buy gas at Shell with my BMO credit card on my way to buy groceries at Safeway...