Originally Posted by
mtftw
Taxes, sure. Fuel surcharges? Never had that happen to me with a US carrier.
Then you either haven't flown in years or have simply not noticed. Go to ITA Matrix and search for any TATL itinerary, on any of the US legacy carriers. I bet you won't find a single one without YR/YQ.
Originally Posted by
Mwenenzi
On an AA award (using AA ff miles) AA charges the BA surcharge if on BA flights
OP is looking for cash fares that don't have a fuel surcharge, since that's what Avion will book.
Originally Posted by
KDS777
You are not going to escape paying for the taxes, surcharges, and fees because those are hard costs that the airline has to pass on to someone else. They already have the empty seat........so that can be redeemed for points. You want to go to Greece. So, all those European airports are very fee intensive, for example, before the advertising rules changed, tickets to LHR (London UK) used to be $400 round trip, but the small print for fees, taxes, surcharges, etc, added ***another*** $400 to the ticket price. Ouch !!
While OP should certainly have read the fine print a bit better, this rather unfriendly award scheme is purely RBC's choice. RBC is booking a paid ticket with the airline. The airline is getting paid for the fare, not just for the fuel surcharges. Perhaps at a bulk/discounted rate, perhaps not, depending on what sort of access they have to book bulk/consolidator or other negotiated fares. RBC already caps the total dollar value of the award. They could easily cover the fuel surcharges if they wanted to. Their completely arbitrary decision not to only serves to make redemptions that don't max out the dollar limit incredibly poor value.