Sfo-Dub-Commuter

for a free transatlantic award ticket is a deterrent.Anyone see any possible
adjustment to the rule? I noticed there were comments today re: SK doing
adjustments to the on line bookings that calculated these charges.

albireo

I'm afraid you can only expect the rules to be adjusted towards higher "taxes" (most of them fuel surcharge) in the future. Note that the 40 euros (P/J class) or 4 euros (Y class) "Chirac tax" is for flights ex France only, so you might save on this one if you choose to depart from a non-French city (even if connecting at CDG).

Since airlines are not allowed to include fuel surcharges in the taxes of tickets sold in the US (they are just included in the base price), that may result in cheaper reward tickets there.

Threy

$ 239 sounds rather cheap.

Priced out a trip with taxes amounting to € 265 today for a trip to DXB...

kuroneko

Not for something that is supposed to be "free"! I have about 72k orphan miles in flying blue acct that I tried to use recently on an intra-europe flight. The taxes and fees on this "free" trip ended up being nearly USD $200! Instead, I booked a paid ticket for $389 (and elected to put the miles in Delta, needless to say).

This is really a deterrent from actually using my miles. Any suggestions on what to do with these orphan points?

Threy

We had some discussions on FT already, if a payment with miles should include all applicable taxes imposed by the Governments, fees from airports, fuel surcharges etc.

It used to be this way during the old Flying Dutchman era, but I guess only a few regulars on this board will remember, because so many jumped ship...

IMO taking airlines to court to let a judge decide , if it is okay to charge all these fees/taxes on what is supposed to be a free flight paid with a virtual currency, is the only way to change the status quo, but even if it would be ruled illegal, airlines would retaliate and increase the amount of miles pretty soon.

DL is offering base fares of € 200+ from Germany to the US,so it is certainly a better value to pay in € rather than miles...

kuroneko

Thanks, Threy. This was the first time I had tried using my KLM miles, and I was really shocked by the fees, which are significantly higher than when I redeem miles from my U.S. based programs. I thought that being based in Europe, I would be better off with a European program. However, these fees have made me decide that I need to stick with the US carrier programs, which end up being a better deal.

Zembla

Do you have NWA Worldperks? Should be possible to merge your FB account into NWA Worldperks.

kuroneko

Thanks for the suggestion! With my European address, WP has said that I am to be covered by the FB program. If I move back to the US, then I can convert to WP.

Threy

This used to be the case with Flying Dutchman and World Perks, but now you can have two accounts or merge your FB with a WP account, IIRC.

A search should give you all the info you need.

kuroneko

Thanks for the tip! I'll look into it.

On the other hand, since I don't fly NW very often either, and since there aren't any paths to conversion from WP, I may just end up being stuck with orphan WP miles...