gopherblue

I just called ANA to redeem my favorite award ticket, Upper Class on Virgin from JFK to LHR. I was told that the taxes/surcharges for this ticket are now $800! A whopping increase over the last time I did booked this about 8 months ago, when the taxes/srchrg was $240.

Does anyone have recent experience with this? Have the fees really gone up that high?!? That is way too much, killing the value of making a redemption.

Thx,
Goph

BowTieGuy

No experience, but ANA/ Virgin have a very reasonable around the world fare in business class fare FYI.

Chiangi

Check another thread.

I read on a Japanese BBS that it started in early July.

Book an award ticket on UA, for instance, using NH miles. You now have to pay high fuel surcharges.

I wonder if UA or CO starts levying those charges for award redemption by their own FFP members.

Unimatrix One

Absolutely ridiculous. These surcharges are just a way for airlines to lie about their mileage programs, claiming to offer "free" tickets when they are not free at all but actually cost hundreds of dollars in fuel surcharges.

Someone should pass a truth-in-advertising law requiring airlines to stop using the term "fuel surcharge" and instead use a more accurate term, such as "the portion of the fare that we hide from you in our advertising and online fare search results."

gopherblue

I am pretty steamed about this. I agree, that these "surcharges" are deceptive and shouldn't be permitted. Is NH actually collecting and remitting the fuel surcharges to VS?

BowTieGuy

High surcharges on an award ticket provides greater motivation to buy one.

That's not helpful I know. But when are you guys going to realise that cheap redemptions on an award ticket are a privilege, not a right?

gopherblue

I disagree with your premise. Under the traditional mileage reward structures, the only costs I should have to bear in making a mileage redemption are various local taxes and minor fees. The airlines are trying to push the ticket cost back on the redeemer of miles, in addition to the miles redeemed.

These surcharges are exactly the way the airlines are hiding costs. If the airline is unhappy with the number of miles needed for a specific ticket, then raise the redemption amount. But hiding actual fare costs in a "fuel surcharge" is deceptive, mean-spirited and wrong. Essentially, what the airlines are offering is a mileage award to reduce the price of the ticket, while still sticking you with at least a significant portion of the ticket cost out of pocket. The ticket referenced in the first post is a $2500 ticket. Basically, NH and VS are selling the ticket for 63,000 miles and $800+.

BowTieGuy

Should? Welcome to the real world, my friend.

Brituchenite

I just got screwed on a CO redemption with ANA to. I wanted to make a date change to a ticket booked a few months ago. They will need to reissue the ticket, and because of that the fees increase from $136 to over $900 because of the fuel surcharge.

Ridiculous. If I cancel the ticket, I lose 3000 miles, but will still be in the same boat if I rebook a different flight - egregious fuel surcharge added.

Feel like I wasted transferring miles from Amex to ANA now.

Only reason i want to change the date is because I need surgery on Monday and my husband is supposed to fly out to the UK on Monday evening. He wants to stay for a few days to make sure my surgery goes well. ANA was not sympathetic to this!

kkcr11

Seems like they are also charging USD300 per one-way ($600 per round-trip) surcharge on Asiana's new business class product (777-200 quadra smartium) on LAX/SFO-ICN route.

A simple SFO-ICN round trip costs 90000miles + USD888.40 fees

Never saw a program like this

armagebedar

That's because OZ charges that as a fee for all tickets issued on that equipment. If you want to complain about that, complain to OZ -- it's been there ever since they introduced the new seats.

http://chkin.flyasiana.com/English/F...rchWrd=&page=1

kkcr11

Thanks for correcting me armagebedar.
Have booked several award tickets (using AMC and BMI miles) contains OZ's new seats but never been charged this surcharge.

Did a random booking (LAX-ICN BUSINESS CLASS) on ITA software.

The difference are :

OZ 201 operated by 747-400
<LAX OZ SEL M 1999.00YOWUG NUC 1999.00 END ROE 1.00 XT 2.50AY 120.90YQ 4.50XF LAX4.50>

OZ 203 operated by 777-200 features Quadra Smartium
<LAX OZ SEL Q300.00 M 1999.00YOWUG NUC 2299.00 END ROE 1.00 XT 2.50AY 120.90YQ 4.50XF LAX4.50>

The difference is the "Q300.00"
Yes it's been there for a while. It's just that ANA's new tax pricing system (starting from July?) now includes not only YQ surcharge but also Q surcharge.

It's not AMC's problem but... i believe most airlines ffp programs doesn't charge Q .