I don't think anyone disputes that a "fuel surcharge" is simply a fee on award redemption charged by the airline. Whether they call it "fuel surcharge," "catering surcharge," "pilot pension surcharge" or simply "F.U. surcharge" is immaterial. It's a fee paid by the passenger that goes straight to the airline.

True, the t&c state essentially "we reserve the right to charge you a fee, that we shall call a surcharge, to redeem your miles, and we can set that fee as high as we like and change it whenever we want."

That said, however, is there not still an issue of false advertising when a company advertises a product as "free" when it is not?

If a store advertises "buy one, get one free," but then tells the customer, at the point of sale, that the free one will actually cost $50 due to an advertising surcharge, restocking surcharge, or whatever they want to call it, would that be ok under any jurisdiction's false advertising laws? I realize the readers of this forum come from so many different jurisdictions, but almost everywhere has some sort of false advertising law, and it seems to me that if a false advertising law can be trumped by a clause in paragraph 38 stating that "by the way we will charge you whatever we like for your 'free' ticket," then that is not a very effective false advertising law, certainly not in this Internet age where we are asked to check a box indicating our assent to the following 5,000 word terms & conditions document which is really nothing more than a lengthy disclaimer.