Originally Posted by
wiivile
I agree. No U.S. airline charges anything other than $5.60 for U.S.-originating awards (unless there is YQ or the destination country charges an arrival tax). The fact that foreign airlines (JAL, Iberia, and FlyingBlue just from this thread) are collecting unnecessary U.S. taxes is troubling to me, but not sure how to get them to stop.
If you can't get the carrier to stop collecting improper taxes, then one might have to explore seeking a refund of those taxes from the IRS.
A complaint about the practice to the DOT might or might not put pressure on JL to fix this.
A few years ago, BA was improperly collecting some taxes on AA award flights between North and South America -- award flights that have no YQ. BA eventually fixed this.