so many good TIPS in this thread to reduce taxes, thx!

I'm already on the the YVR - FRA on LH why would I want to add Calgary into the mix and make another stop? And on the way back, I'm starting in Marseille, I wouldn't make that 9:45 am flight unless I went the day before and stayed in Frankfurt overnight which given the choice, I'd rather spend my last vacation night in Provence ;)

Pek-sin-mle-sin-pek
 

in economy
total: China Airport Fee (CN) CAD16.20

*Fare calculation:
21OCT09PEK SQ SIN0.00SQ MLE0.00SQ SIN0.00SQ PEK0.00CAD0.00
END ROE1.28

For such open-jaw searches in the AP website, all I am getting is "The itinerary you have selected cannot be booked online". Is this sufficient to call and waive the agent's fees?

Booked: Sep '08
Travel date: Dec'08-Jan'09

YOW - ORD (UA)
ORD - PEK (UA)
PEK - SIN (SQ) (TURN)
SIN - NRT (SQ)
NRT - IAD (NH)
IAD - YOW (AC)

Total tax (Y class): CAD $124
Aeroplan fees: $0 (booked online with no stopovers)

Out of 6 segments, 1 was in AC. If none was in AC, the tax might have been even lesser is it?

YYZ-FRA-MXP MXP-ZRH-YYZ
AP $340 + $32+ 60,000 AP Miles (Y all around).
The $32 is because the connection time at FRA was 45 minutes and we tried to book on LH for the same routing and they require 90 minutes at FRA for a connection. In order to get a realistic connection on the AP booking, there was no access on-line so we had to call and pay the phone service charge. BTW the fare on AC/LH booked through LH was $450 RT + $400 taxes and fees.
FWIW the AC flight into FRA was 60 minutes late so the connection was impossible and they would have had to accommodate on the flight we took anyway. The connection in FRA was distant and involved passport control. LH demands that you be at the gate 20 minutes ahead. So the 45 minute connection is ridiculous - possible but only if the stars are aligned.

Y!!??!? :D

I took some doing over the past week and involved ANA plus expertflyer.com searches but I managed to snag the following for Christmas and New Years Eve:

YYC-YWG-YUL-ZRH-VIE-LJU-TGD-ZAG-BLQ-FRA-YYC 100k Business Award plus $160 in taxes/fees ($80 in AC fuel surcharges). :td:

5 Star Alliance members and some creative routing: AC, LX, JP, OU, TP, LH
(will be my first flights on both JP and TP).

If anyone has travel tips for Slovenia and Montenegro, send me a PM. ;)

YVR-YYZ-LHR-YVR
All AC, All J.
$531.96. About $100 less to book in Y.

I wonder if you went YYZ-FRA-LHR instead to include a LH/BD segment whether you could have escaped the high fuel surcharge by making it a Star alliance award (not sure if more or less points are required)

Do you not have to avoid AC metal completely to shake off the YQ? *A award would have been 80k vs 85k for AC though right?

Don't forget LHR has high "arrival" taxes regardless.

YVR-ORD-LGA rtn UA J
40,000 + $84.79

Not sure if I am right, there is no need to avoid AC if we only travel in NA (no YQ) ?

Unless there has been recent change, it's $40/segment YQ on AC metal within NA.

Perhaps it is $40 per direction if AC metal is involved. $40 per segment doesn't jive with what I have seen.

Quite possible...I only ever use 1 AC flight from YYC to get to my gateway city. The agents always say there is a $40 YQ for the AC flight.

Its $40 per segment domestically (see my Christmas trip a few entries above). The YYC-YWG-YUL yielded a nice full surcharge of $80. :td:

Just booked 2 seats in Y for YYZ-YOW(stop)-YFB(stop)-YOW-YYZ.

The surcharges came to $217.00+$31.50 booking fee.

The value of this rivals that of the AP F RTW tickets. For 15000 points, one such ticket costs $2380!!

I was trying to book YYZ-YOW-YFB-YRB-YFB-YOW-YYZ but they don't have any seats on any dates that I could do it. In fact, they don't have anything available. This would have been an even better deal. $5825 per ticket for 15K points!!

Wow. *Deep breaths* :mad: :mad:

That's just offensive; you can fly between the two for almost that on a paid ticket if you catching the right sale.

YYZ - YWG - YYZ
J class
25,000 points
$113.75

My friend's trip (all in Y):

BKK - HKG
HKG - YVR
YVR - YLW (stop)

YLW - YYC
YYC - YWG (stop)

YWG - ORD
ORD - PEK
PEK - BKK

$247.86 and (I think) 85,000 points.

I think it's clear from my 2 posts above that using points on a short-haul flight doesn't make sense as the fees kill it.

I've learned my lesson.

YYC-ORD UA First
ORD-FRA LH First
FRA-BKK TG First
BKK-HDY TG Business
turnaround in Andaman paradise for 4 weeks
HDY-BKK TG Business
stopover for a couple of days of BKK shopping
BKK-NRT TG First
NRT-SFO UA First
SFO-YYC UA First

$31.50 For the phone call to spoon feed the flights to the rep and $115.06 in taxes for a grand total of $146.56 per person. Took 120,000 AE miles each for me and the wife.

Technobabble from the itinerary:

Taxes, surcharges and airline fees per passenger (age of 2 and over)
Canada Security Charge (CA) 17.00
Canada Goods and Services Tax (GST/HST #10009-2287) (XG) 1.05
Combined taxes, fees, charges and surcharges *for ClassicFlight, see fare calculation below (XT) 97.01

Cheers,
Paul

Damn.. that is cheap

My trip last year to SIN
YYZ-NRT-SIN
SIN-NRT-YYZ $190 + $31.50

and YES, that was before I knew of this site...!! :mad:

YLW-YVR AC Economy
YVR-SEA AC Economy
SEA-NRT UA First
NRT-SIN NH Business
stopover for 10 days
SIN-BOM SQ Business
turnaround
BOM-FRA LH First
FRA-YVR LH First
YVR-YLW AC Economy

$31.50 for the phone call and $228.08 in taxes for a grand total of $259.58. Took 120,000 AE miles.

You are very lucky! That award should never have been issued for 120K.

You are stopping in India and should have been charged 240K for an F award from Canada to India.

YWG-YOW
YYZ-YWG

25,000 points in J

Security Charge: $9.33
Carrier Admin Charge: $54
Combined Taxes Fees: $50.42
Total $113.75

YYC-IAH-YYC, Dec 11-13, Executive Class, $141 all in.

YOW - (YUL) - CDG - (ZRH) - BCN - AGP - (MAD - YYZ) - YOW

80K miles, all in business class (except for the first segment which is on a Dash 8) on AC, LX and JK.

Total taxes $386.27, of which $304 is fuel. Sounds expensive but money well spent for this complicated itinerary, I thought. (Treating my niece to a trip to Europe next summer.) I had help putting this together from an extremely talented FTer!

Do you think you could have stopped in ZRH and MAD for 80K miles and the same taxe fees?

This itinerary has 2 stop overs plus 1 turn around which is the max allowed on AP reward tickets. You could not add 2 more stops.

Just got my tix today for next July/August

100,000 points

YYZ-ORD UA J
ORD-NRT NH J
NRT-HKG NH J (Stop)
HKG-SIN SQ J (turnaround)

SIN-NRT NH J (stop)
NRT-ORD NH J
ORD-YYZ UA Y

$107.17+31.50 =$138.67

YHZ-YUL ( AC J)
YUL-MUC ( LH F)
MUC-FCO ( LH J) STOP

FCO-FRA (LH J)
FRA-SIN ( LH F) Point of Turnaround

SIN-NRT ( NH J) STOP

NRT-ICN( OZ J)
ICN-LAX (OZ F) 24 hr stopover

LAX-YYZ (AC J)
YYZ-YHZ (AC J)

120,000 aeroplan miles each.

Taxes Each - $284 ( Two of us flying, total was $568) including AE booking charge.

You think this is fair? I was expecting lower, like around $150 per person, not $284 per person.
I'm not complaining, just to be clear. I think I still got an AMAZING VALUE for points. :)

YUL-EWR (CO) Y
EWR-FRA (LH) J
FRA-SIN (LH) J
SIN-SYD (SQ) J (Turnaround)
SYD-SIN (SQ) J (Stopover)
SIN-IST (TK) J (Stopover)
IST-FRA (LH) J
FRA-EWR (LH) J
EWR-YUL (CO) Y

2 tickets for me & Mrs. South Shore. 100,000 mi each
$250. in taxes each ticket (incl. AP call ctr fee), Not bad.

Just booked for next Sept.-- all business

YYZ-MUC (AC)-ZRH (LH)-stop
ZRH - BUD (LX) point of turnaround
PRG-DUS-YYZ (LH)

100,000 points + $236 + 31.50 fee

I knew it was going to be more $ because of the AC segment but like the flatbed seats.

Air China / Thai great deal
 

Great price Air China and Thai Business class Beijing-Xining Lhasa-Bangkok (with 4 hours in Kathmandu, return Bangkok Beijing total 30,000 points Taxes fees $30 + Aeroplan booking fee $31.50

when is this taking place? what month?

I phoned to price out an economy class award ticket from YSB to BCN and back with a stop over each way in Paris.

The following was proposed:

YSB - YYZ - CDG on AC
FRA - BCN on LH

BCN - FRA - CDG on LH
YYZ - YSB on AC

The price in miles was 60,000. Well and good.

But I was informed that it was not possible to tell me the cost for fees and taxes without actually booking it. Is that correct? I did eventually manage to get a vague ballpark figure of perhaps $400.

Now by having the couple of segments on LH, would this ticket get around AC's criminally expensive fuel tax? At $400 I am thinking not. Or would I need to have everything but the YSB-YYZ & YYZ - YSB on LH to get around that?

And finally, is there no Star Alliance awards available on CDG - BCN direct flights? UA's Mile Plus people claim that Spanair doesn't even fly the route! And AC's Aeroplan people claim that there is no availability 6 months out!

Thanx.