You're right about the fuel surcharge being fairly low, I guess I thought wrong. An IB flight from BOS-MAD costs $87 in fees, while AA MIA-MAD would be $2.50, for reasons listed on this thread.

MUC-BOS with AB metal (MUC-DUS-JFK-BOS) cost $110, while IB was $184 for MUC-MAD-BOS during some recent searches I did, FWIW.

So IB does cost more than AB, but I guess not that much more and it is due more to airport fees/taxes than fuel surcharges apparently.


So OP, you definately have a lot of options if you are willing to get creative and compare lots of options. Although where you actually want to go is still going to impact things a lot.