denCSA

I can just see it now:

Flyertalkers Unite Corp. vs. AMR Corp.

...in the battle to end frivolous fees and surcharges on award tickets!

EasternTraveler

WELL! Actually these are TAXES as defined:

A contribution for the support of a government required of persons, groups, or businesses within the domain of that government.
A fee or dues levied on the members of an organization to meet its expenses.
A burdensome or excessive demand; a strain


Airports are government operations.

sdsearch

Not at Heathrow they aren't!

Dave Noble

Nor lots of other airports either; fees paid to these are not taxes

fastair

True, like HPN, which is not government owned, yet the XF tax (fee) is collected.

RChavez

So question for the OP. All that you were changing was a date on an existing ticket, and now you're being asked for the additional YQ amount?

Or did you make a change that would have triggered an award reissue (e.g. change origin/destination or carrier)?

If it's the latter case, then what you're really doing is issuing a new award, and in that case, you really should be charged the new YQ amounts.

If it's the former, I would be upset as well, as the "price" of the ticket was changed out from under me. I would be curious if AA is allowing customers in this specific situation to switch carriers without charging a penalty. I would also write to AA to see what they are offering to do. The tickets should be valid for the origin, destination, carrier and class booked. AA really should honor that, regardless of new agreement with BA.

ExpatExp

Well, assuming it is indeed being called a tax, and assuming it is not in fact a tax, then AA is collecting funds for a tax which does not exist. It seems to me that some kind of recourse should therefore be available. I wonder if someone with more legal knowledge than I could weigh in?

JDiver

Even the US Gov declines to call specific fees "taxes" because they might be unlawfully established as a tax not levied by an agency with authority to do so. But, the airlines' agents often call such rubbish a "tax". And some fees never go away - if the price of Jet A dropped, do you really thing all airlines would immediately quash their YQ?

kebosabi

Yes, it is disturbing to know that AA hasn't let their CSRs know that calling YQ as a "tax" instead of a "fuel surcharge" is illegal many countries and can lead to a costly litigation. This is moreso true in places where AA conducts business, like Japan.

Take JAL for example, whose JMB members are levied fuel surcharges when they try to redeem award flights on not just JAL but for all OW carriers. Under Japanese law, JAL cannot lump all the extra charges into a single "tax" (税) category and call it as such, they must separate the charges into two separate categories, tax and "fuel surcharge" (燃料サーチャージ). If not, JAL could be slapped with huge fines from the NTA (Japan's equivalent of the IRS).

The same applies to any airline business which has offices in Japan. So, if an AAdvantage member who resides in Japan wishes to redeem an award ticket using his/her AA miles from NRT/HND to Europe via LHR with the use of BA, if the AA CSR says it's a "tax" instead of a "fuel surcharge" and the e-mailed itinerary is sent out with all the amount lumped into a single category, technically that person can file a grievance with the CAA (Japanese equivalent of the BBB) leading to an audit by the NTA which AA would have a lot of explaining to do. Sure if AA is doing nothing wrong by actually paying BA the surcharges that is collected, that's fine. But it'll be a pain in the butt to prove it, and just like the US, no one or no company wants a knock on the door by the tax man.

If AA has reached a deal with BA to start levying YQ charges, they better stay on the safe side to update their systems to create a new line that states "fuel surcharge" on them and train their CSRs that Tax is tax and a fuel surcharge is a fuel surcharge. No more combining the sum into a single line that reads "taxes and other charges." Safer to list them separately; just like Toyota ain't immune to US laws for doing business here, AA ain't immune to Japanese laws for doing business over there either.

newbluesea

I must say I am quite amused by the your consistently bringing up here how things are done in Japan and what JAL does relative to AA's operations/procedures as if they are some sort of exemplary example worth duplicating
Japan has been in a 20+year recession and JAL has saddled the Govt with what? a $100B+ debt?

rjw242

Whereas US carriers (and the US economy) have been nothing but the picture of health since time immemorial

kebosabi

To be fair, JAL was run more like a quasi-governmental organization similar to the USPS than AA

But in all seriousness though, I was just using an analogy that a tax be noted as tax only and not with "hidden" fuel surcharges? If you want to tack on fuel surcharge, at least be more open about it.

It's like your grocer hiding the markup cost of rising fuel costs of bringing the goods from the farm under the "sales tax" column of your grocery receipt. Sounds too fishy to me.

TrojanHorse

so if I create my own small business and sell an item in my state (VA), I would have to pay the state sales tax I presume to the state.. hence I would charge that to the customer as well.. for ease of the mind.. lets say my $100 item requires a 8.25% tax.. so now my invoice says

item $100
Va sales tax $8.25
total invoice $108.25

simple enough

now lets say the same item and the same price but I want to add a fuel surcharge (hey its now $2.95 a gallon here) and my calculations are I need to add another 1.75% to the sales price to cover the rise in fuel or I'm just a greedy SOB.. either way, I have a fuel surcharge

if my invoice states

item $100
Va sales tax $8.25
fuel surcharge $1.75 (I presume I have to disclose this up front)
total invoice $110

I'm probably fine

however if I

item $100
taxes $10
total invoice $110.00

I have to beleive that there is a violation of the law there; for you state tax auditors out there, how does this work

but what happens if I do this


item $100
taxes & fees $10
total invoice $110.00


how much has to be disclosed between tax and fees? isn't this what the airlines do?

kebosabi

Correct, that's how AA does it for the YQ+tax thing for BA, but the question arises when how much clarity does the consumer, especially from one out of state/out of country have when one doesn't know what percentage sales taxes are.

At least the other nickel and dimings like checked bag fees are paid separately so you know it's a separate line item, but at glance no one knows how much of that "taxes & fees" are taxes and BA YQ charges. It's a very gray area.

Let's say I reside in CA and buy goods from you over the internet. By law I may have to pay sales tax at your VA rate (or maybe not, it varies). But how is a CA consumer supposed to know how much of your "taxes & fees" are VA taxes and the other fuel surcharges, or heck even shipping & handling charges?

For all I know, you could in fact be just splitting it 8:2 instead of 8.25:1.75. I could in turn, question this to your state's BBB, in turn may result in an audit by the taxman to see if you're really doing 8.25:1.75 instead of pocketing the extra quarter. And when the taxman cometh, if he/she says "prove it," do you have the necessary paperwork and system to show it? Even after long hours sitting with the auditor to show that you were paying it honestly, wouldn't it be much easier to just separate the line item from now on to avoid this hassle again?

Another example would be say...a phone bill. It clearly separately lists all the nickle and diming that they ding us at the federal, state, and local level, plus any other optional services and "fees." But at least they break it down instead of lumping it together into one single "taxes & fees." I'm sure very few people would know from the top of their head what percentage of our phone bill go to federal, state and local taxes or whether or not the phone cos are just pocketing all that extra change.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

What makes you think that your "fuel surcharge" isn't also subject to VA sales tax?