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Old May 12, 2017, 12:32 pm
  #3  
theboss7593
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Bergen County NJ
Programs: AA EXP, B6 Mosaic 1, Amtrak Select, Marriott Plat , AMEX Plat (noted for club access reference)
Posts: 774
Originally Posted by sw3
You have to log into your account and do as if you were going to book the flight, eventually you'll see how much money you'd have to pay for the specific itinerary you selected - no other way around that except for calling by phone.

Unlike other airlines where you use the points/miles and pay just the taxes —and exactly the same taxes of a paid ticket, so your points/miles cover the full fare price—, Club Premier doesn't work like that. You'll have to pay the taxes plus some money on top. This charge has the obscure name of "Cargos aéreos" and to me it looks like it's something they do so they don't lose so much money when redeeming points. It's not a fuel surcharge that everyone with a ticket pays, just a charge they apply to award tickets. My take is that when quoting an award ticket they do something like consider a predetermined monetary value of the points, check the actual paid fare for the selected flights, deduct the monetary value of the required points from that fare, and charge the rest as "Cargos aéreos". They will also charge a ticketing fee on top of that even if you book by yourself on the website.

Last year I quoted something like 80000 points and about 8000 MXN for a Mexico-Europe roundtrip. Not a good value considering that good deals could and can still be found to Europe for about 13000 MXN so I passed on that.

My suggestion would be to quote on the Club Premier website so you can see how much you'd have to pay, then check the regular fare prices for the same route on any airline, or if you're flexible on the dates and connections compare with some benchmark for good deals that pop up frequently or not-so-frequently (like Mexico City to Colombia, Ecuador or Peru for less than 300 USD) and evaluate if the difference in money is worth the points you'd spend... it might not be worth it.

As to compare, last year the value of the points for hotels was about 0.5625 US cents per point. So using 10000 points for hotels was a value of about 56.25 USD.

High season economy award tickets to South America North (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru...) are 60000 points round trip. The value of those 60000 points for hotels is about 337 USD. So unless you need to book a flight urgently for a particular date and the prices are really high, you might be better off waiting for a good airfare and using the points for hotels or for some other flight that might be worth it. Generally speaking it wouldn't be very reasonable to pay 60000 points (worth 337 USD in hotels) plus taxes, "cargos aéreos" and ticketing fees if the same flight can be bought upfront for 250 USD.

I've never tried to use Club Premier points for SkyTeam awards though, so I don't know if they do the same "cargos aéreos" thing for those.
Is this true for MEX-USA flights?

I got all the way to the checkout screen (i have zero points since I would be transferring from MR) and all it said was I owe points no cash. I don't want to transfer MR if it turns out I have to pay a fee on top of it (since the fee sounds a bit exorbitant)
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