Originally Posted by
relaxonbarton
Thanks for clarifying, as I've been a bit confused with disparities I've found between BA and IB award costs while seeking my most recent redemption. Are you able to advise on the reason for IB+ charging much higher taxes and fees on flights departing low fee ports like HKG? BA is quoting the sort of fees I'm used to paying, whereas IB+ are quoting fees approximately 4 times higher. Just wondering whether this is also an IT bug, or whether this program has a policy of charging higher fees than other OW programs for these flights?
The reason HKG has a lower set of fees than many other places is due to local legislation prohibiting carrier surcharges - similar to Brazil. BA removed this fairly soon after the legislation was enacted but IB+ so far has not. Now this may be perfectly legal - BA were selling their redemptions on their aircraft and they have significant operations in HKG going back to the start of commercial aviation. Whereas Iberia has no HKG operations and is reselling space as a third party, I have no idea if this is legal or not but it is different to BA's position.