I booked a flight for a family member in business class. YEG-YYZ-YOW-YYZ-YEG. All of the segements were originally booked in business class except for YOW-YYZ which was booked in economy. Experflyer sent me an alert a couple of days ago that a business seat had opened up, so I called Aeroplan to upgrade the seat.

The agent did this for me and told me that my credit card number was needed (apparently she needed to exchange the ticket) but that there would be no charge on my card.

That evening I received an email from Aeroplan showing a $30.00 Carrier Admin Service Charge (YR) plus $6.24 HST. This morning I checked my CC online and it shows that I was indeed charged by Aeroplan.

I called earlier this morning to find out the reason for the charge, especially since I was told there would be no charge on my card. The agent I spoke to said that this was the new security charge that came into effect April 1, 2010 and that it was applicable to all tickets modified after April 1, 2010 (she also said that somebody has to pay for all the new body scanners). I said that had I been told of the charge I might have decided to try and upgrade at the gate. At this point she offered to change the seat back to economy and remove the $30.00 fee (which to me still didn’t make sense as the ticket would be modified once again). I told the agent that I’d have to think about it and call back. I’m doing the “hang up try again” approach, but before I call back I’d like to be armed with the facts.

According to this thread, the added charge is supposed to be $2.50 per passenger for domestic flights. Even if this was applicable to all 4 segments this would only be $10.00.

Tcook also mentioned an increase in the CA charge (Air traveller security tax) in the last post of this thread of $2.45 to $8.33. This is a CA charge, not YR, so I don’t think this would have affected my price.

So, my questions are as follows:
1. What is this YR charge for and is it a legitimate charge?
2. Even if the charge is legitimate, why am I being charged HST when I live in Alberta, and the ticket is to/from Alberta?

I really don't want to go down the path of disputing the charge with my CC company for fear of getting the flight cancelled. I'd really like to work this out with Aeroplan.

[EDIT] After I finished typing this post I checked the original booking. The original booking was made on April 4, 2010, so there should not have been any additional fees added “post April 1.” In addition, I looked at the detailed fare calculations associated with the tickets and everything seems to line up. I can’t figure out why there is an extra $30.00 charge.