Hello Daph! Been ages sonce we saw your handle here it seems. Unfortunately you would have been stung for the UK ticket tax for Business and First which is now about £100 or so. Someone here will know.

Actually had you bought the ticket in the UK I see that the charges for fuel/tax/Grodon Browns holiday fund is about £394. Clearly either AA eats some of the charges or you have to give more miles I know not which. I am not defending these as I think that they are iniquitous - the ticket tax is just a cheap source of revenue and it is as much to do with saving the planet as I am about saving Green Shield stamps.

All I can say Sweet Pea is that the tickets seem to be selling at about £6000 return so you are getting some value for your miles. I will also confess that I get dreadfully tired - and I do not include you here as you express this quite differently and I know you from many posts over the years - of people complaining over the taxes and charges when they are still getting what I think is a seat for a lot less than it would be than if we had to fork out those sort of fares. I suppose that one can only make the comparison by saying that the taxes to be paid are still cheaper than the WT fare at that time of year. It is some consolation but it is still quite a lot of money for a family.

I do feel when I see the taxes for redeeming miles that "free" tickets are not issue - my best friend was looking at redeeming in Y for GVA - it was only 18,000 for two but the taxes and charges were iniquitous. He preferrred to use 36,000 miles for two CE tickets and the charges were not much more and he has the miles to use. His rationale was that even at I fares out of LHR (LGW is cheaper but there were none of those fares available when he wants to travel) would have been about £700 and he has paid £180 for the two. He looked at CO redemption (he was actually very impressed with their helpful service at he Brussels centre) but I was advised that the LCY AF service was not a patch on BAs and not to bother. (The taxes were lower on that I might add).

Now I am biased - and I am doing this route very soon but I have flown from LAX with AA. It attracts the most senior crew at the LAX base (notthe most as I expect that they go to NRT as they earn a lot more) nad the service can be hit-or-miss and from what my pax on the outbound tell me the "hard product" is not as good either. So - let us hope that we are worth the extra tax and that you enjoy the flights. When are you coming?

One last thing. Whatever you budgeted for the trip last year - everything in the UK has gone up big time. Be prepared!


PG