Originally Posted by
Smiley90
The Japan rules only apply to the stints that border the Japan stop, not your entire trip - so in your case only the outbound. AFAIK. so you get no taxes on the outbound but full taxes on the return through ICN. Easily possible for ICN-YYZ to make up most of those taxes by itself
I did a bit more research and testing - and it may be misleading to say "no taxes/YQ/carrier surcharge". That was true up to a point in the past, before a few iterations of new rules - Japan's current set of rules applies a cap on the carrier surcharge, varying by flights. Credit to Prince of Travel. FYI, one can see the taxes break down from the Aeroplan website search results by clicking the "Taxes, Fees & Surcharges" link when you get the fees quote.
My test case of YYZ-PVG-HND yielded a carrier surcharge capped at $172(AC+ANA) and $219 (AC+CA) depending on the airlines used. This may seem like a rather high cap in some cases, but it sure beats paying $310 carrier surcharge on YYZ-PVG AC leg alone. This is not to be confused with the city/airport taxes are added on top and cannot be avoided. I verified these figures with the call center and they seem consistent.
In your case, the string of AC flights from NA directly into Japan is capped at $130, which is the "best" cap I've seen, for a total of $184 including the airport taxes.
ZRH-YVR on AC yielded a carrier surcharge of $274, for a total of $321 with the airport tax.
Just those 2 pieces already add up to over $500, and we still need to include the 4 OZ/LH flights, so there must have been some additional caps/synergies applied here.
I was also able to price out YVR-YEG-YYC-NRT(stop)-ICN-TAS(stop)-IST-ZRH-YUL-YVR, using the same airlines as you up to IST and finishing off with LX+AC shorthaul (low YQ), for a total taxes $488.
If interested, search YVR-NRT-TAS-YVR in the multi-city tool with Sep 8, Oct 12, Jan 28 and check Economy-Economy-Business and you should be able to pull everything together. I think it has something to do with stopping in CDG, which wiped out a lot of taxes for the Europe part of your trip.