A nice woman at the AC ticket office in the city where I am located said that Aeroplan has charged me correctly for its fuel surcharge on an all-AC itinerary returning from Canada. However, she went on to tell me that as I am going trans-Pacific to Canada on non-AC carriers, I will have to pay extra fuel surcharges for carriers other than AC at the airport before I am allowed to board these non-AC flights.

At the time, the AC ticket agent was trying to get me to agree to pay an extra CAD 400 or so as a supplementary fuel surcharge to change my trans-Pac routing to Canada to a direct, non-stop AC flight. When I heard the amount of the proposed charge and pointed out to her that there was an indirect routing that is much cheaper on Star carriers other than AC, this is what she told me.

Now, this lady seems nice enough and I don't have any reason to question her honesty. Is it true that I will have to shell out at the airport for fuel surcharges not included on the Aeroplan ticket to fly on a trans-Pacific routing to Canada on the non-AC Star carriers? When I called the non-AC Star carriers to request seat assignments on their own-operated fights, no one mentioned this to me. In fact, on a previous Star award booking on same-date flights on this very routing and on these same non-AC carriers, the Aeroplan agent in Canada who made this earlier booking didn't mention anything about having to pay a fuel surcharge at the airport.

Anyone? What's the story here?