Originally Posted by ananthar
Charging huge fuel surcharges on award tickets is a rip off. First, this charge was not disclosed when we earned the miles. Second it doesn't cost the airline more than 15 Euro in additional fuel to add one passenger, which is only slightly more than the 5-10 Euro it used to cost a few years ago (and hence is included in the miles for the award), so charging more than a 10 Euro surcharge on awards is not justified based on the increase in fuel cost. Do they have class action lawsuits in France ?
BTW if you had flown KLM, the award would not have included any fuel surcharge. Avoid AF metal (unless you get First Class).
Facts, please.
On this route (SFO) AF and KLM charge
lower taxes on award tickets than on paid tickets.
AF (paid ticket): CDG-SFO taxes:
168€ (+service fee: 20€)
AF (award): CDG-SFO taxes:
140€ (service fee: 0€)
Difference: 48€
KLM (paid ticket): AMS-SFO taxes:
172€ (+service fee: 10€)
KLM (award): AMS-SFO taxes:
144€ (+service fee: 0€)
Difference: 38€
Sorry but I don't see the rip-off here. 2 conclusions:
1. AF and KLM charge about the same amount of taxes.
2. Taxes on awards are
28€ cheaper in both cases.
Taxes are of course higher for connecting routes, but that's another story. It would require a few dummy bookings with FB's award booking engine. Several attempts have not made it possible to price AMS-CDG-SFO awards. The inbound is systematically offered either non stop to AMS, either with a US (DL, CO...) domestic connection which in the end turns out to be "unavailable"
The SFO-CDG leg
is available for a one away award, but no way to include it in an AMS-CDG-SFO award proposal to check taxes. I will leave that to experts...