Huge tax/fees on a one way flight CA>USA
 

Hey all, first time taking Air Canada for a short trip to Toronto. I booked two one-way flights

LGA-YYZ (Jan 10th)
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...38cc39af7e.png
and then return trip: YYZ-EWR (Jan 11)
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...60def4e0b6.png
As you can see, the amount for "Taxes, fees and charges" is HUGE, almost the same as the flight itself!!
I do know that the price is in CAD so that translates to around $165 USD at the moment.
But I was wondering why that is the case.

Thank you.

Have you tried clicking "View price breakdown" ?

Clicking the View Price Breakdown link will give you all of the individual taxes you're being charged. Here is an example - amounts will be slightly different than yours due to a difference in the base fare.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...24fc9bf3dc.png

Why not click on the "view price breakdown" that is shown in your screen shots and find out for yourself?

EDIT - D'oh! It took me too long to confirm via aircanada website that the "view price breakdown" link would actually work while I was typing my response. The other 2 already beat me to it!

@risenmyth

I was also curious about how the breakdown of taxes/fees would look on AC vs UA on LGA-YYZ on Jan 10. I picked random flights since prices don't really align much. (BTW, UA is not necessarily cheaper, but they were giving away this one particular routing for $100)

You can see with this example that UA has a lower Base Fare.


Air Canada

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...21ee9022c3.png


United


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...8de12a34e5.png

Ah I thought the screenshot shown WAS the price breakdown! I didn't notice that it was pressable.
Thanks for the tip!

This is really interesting! Maybe this would have been a better choice considering I had status with United, but the times that were cheap for United was terrible.
It would have been a cheaper alternative considering I had to pay $10 for a standard seat with Air Canada.

As I wrote above


So, you would only know if you compared the total cost and if you were able to get the lower fare and routing you want on UA.

Also I have no idea which fare you chose for AC, but you did choose to pay for a seat. And then of course the question is, do earnings matter and will you earn more UA points in the new program with the AC flights or the UA flights. I am not an expert on UA so I can't answer those questions or offer you an opinion.

But as you noted, the UA flight times were not convenient for you.

Yup, this fits my schedule better.
Looks like it was a fare class of K for both legs. What fare classes would have resulted in an unpaid seat? M, U, H, Q, V, W, G and above?

Here's an interesting page for you

https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/...to-the-us.html

And I selected To the U.S.

https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/...to-the-us.html

These are screen shots from the U.S. page (not the whole page)


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...e71c31e14a.png

Seat fees are on this chart

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...4a8f4e1a8c.png

The fare class isn't going to tell you the fare brand you get booked into, unless its Y or B (maybe one more).

And cross airline booking mappings.... all bets off. You have no chance of knowing before what you get.

Welcome to Canada, enjoy your stay!

And drive out of here and only pay $5 in tax for BUF-NYC?

Toronto is an expensive airport to depart from (we have several of those because, contrary the US, they are not subsidised by the federal government) thanks to the Airport Improvement Fee of CAD 25 plus Harmonized Sales Tax on top of that.

Also, the US government taxes all flights that depart in Canada within a certain number of miles from the US border with a Transportation Tax, so you get hit by that.

However, you would have avoided the Canadian Goods and Services Tax (GST) if you had booked a return ticket (NYC-YYZ-NYC) instead of two oneways.

Also, in some cases, Air Canada's base fare is lower (just had that on an AC trip to SFO returning from SEA) if booked on the same ticket as the outbound flight. I don't know if there is any system behind that occurrence.