This stuff is JUST like the advertising charge on new cars.... Advertising is a cost of doing business when selling cars. I expect the dealers to include that in the price of their car - I'm not paying extra.

This came to a head last month when I got into a very heated debate with a car salesman, who stormed out on me after I refused to even consider paying an advertising charge. He apologized later, but too late -- next day I bought from another dealer who didn't explicitly charge me an advertising charge.

Now did the dealership actually have to pay an advertising charge? Probably. But I'm not paying it outright as an additional charge. I based my offer on invoice+dest charge (my father-in-law works in trucking -- thats a real charge). That's it. Advertising charge eats into their profit, just like paying the salesman and the electricity bill is. It's not on top of the price of the car.

Today I wanted to book a $110 cheap roundtrip. Yesterday it priced out to $127. Today it priced out to $167 since they added the whole $40 fuel surcharge to the route. I said no thanks and booked on another carrier since so far not all of them had the surcharge on the route.

The fact that the surcharge has no relation to the distance flown is the most criminal IMHO. Whether or not govt can or should do anything about it I don't know. It's just plain ridiculous.