Carrier Imposed Surcharge / YQ: AA award on BA / British (& IB) & avoiding it
 

I've flown SJC to LHR on their 787-9 First, thought a great experience, definitely different from LAX to LHR experience it seems(basically First being business hard product wise if not soft....). I don't recall paying surcharges both ways but I think I probably did, based on what I've seen. Here's why, LAX to LHR 11.20 fees, AUS to LHR $900 plus. Can't even find availabilty SJC to LHR, loved the flight! Award travel surcharges. Why difference? All BA metal. Wonder what the comparison is but think not worth a thousand bucks vs. $11.20. I had thought the difference was AA metal vs BA but apparently not...

If you paid only $11.20 in fees, you were on AA metal, not BA metal. And $11.20 would cover the fees for two passengers, not one.

No, BA metal non stop, not saver so 140 K.

The $11.20 flight can only be AA metal. BA only has saver level availability and will always have high surcharges.

Nope, not the case. Try it yourself. If in US. I get what your saying.....

Please provide a screenshot or what flight number and date you're seeing this for.

You're right, sorry, I'd misread it.

It's easy to secure a SAAver award SJC-LHR and onward for 57,500 miles. The BA charges, including YQ listed as "Carrier imposed charges", total ~$375 for Business class. Not $11.20, not "a thousand bucks"

No interest in BAs crappy business, first on this leg is so much better than their other first, but was almost $500 each leg, hence $1000. Lot better options to Europe in business

Using AA Miles to get from USA - Turkey
 

Any tips for getting from DFW - IST without tacking on egregious fees. Even if I find the TATL flight on American metal and then BA from LHR - IST, it's spitting out almost 200$ in taxes. :(

Boooo.

That's the best you can do: BA is the only AAdvantage partner that flies to IST from Europe.

Thank you.

What if I tried to route through Doha on Qatar? DFW - DOHA - IST. Would it still price out at the 22,500 mile saaver (i'm going offpeak)? Or is this routing not allowed.

I don't think you are allowed to route through Doha or AUH. It would be two awards.

Correct.

It is 2 awards, I've done it through both DOH and AUH. Still, as far as I'm concerned it's worth the added miles as it means you get to fly quality airlines. You backtrack a little, approx 3 hrs, which didn't bother me at all. And you get a nice long sleep on the way over, no rush service and quick nap before hitting the ground in a daze. Plus you can fly into SAW should you so please.

For someone traveling in Coach (as the inquiring FTer hopes to), it makes little sense to pay 60,000 miles and some fees to route via the Middle East on two awards, versus 22,500 miles and about $200 to route via LON. To me, paying an extra 37,500 miles to save something less than $200 is crazy -- unless one wants to stop over for one or more days somewhere in the Middle East.

Yup, agreed. Thanks for the answers, everyone. This helps!

I'm trying to price an award DUB-LHR-SFO in BA J (yes, don't judge...)

BA.com US (dummy Avios booking) quotes around $250 in taxes and fees and AA.com quotes $290. I looked at the components and the only difference is in the YQ. Why would AA charge a higher YQ? With such difference I would assume that it is not currency fluctuations too...

I would suspect that AA is charging YQ for DUB-LHR plus YQ for LHR-SFO whilst BA is charging YQ for DUB-SFO

Can you not get a routing on , say , EI directly from DUB to USA?

Thanks. I'm inclined to believe that's the case but I looked on BA.com separately, no YQ for DUB-LHR but YQ for LHR-SFO is not exactly what AA wants to charge for YQ DUB-LHR-SFO (but close enough).

I thought it's not possible to book EI with AA miles. And I guess BA is still 'better' than EI......

I assume DFW-PHL-ATH + a cheap cash fare ATH-IST doesn't appeal to you. (And granted, PHL-ATH is only seasonal.)

Ugh! BA fees... Creative ideas welcome!
 

Hi,

My parents have roughly 200k AA miles each. One has 80k United Miles, the other has 12k United.

They live in south Florida (FLL, MIA). They are travelling into Kilamanjaro (JRO) in June and departing Livingston (LVI) in July. They are also trying to visit a friend in London on one side of this trip.
I am trying to work a nice comfortable business class trip out for them, without depleting all of their miles AND all of their cash. The best itinerary I found for 1 portion of the trip was 75,000 miles plus $650 pp. I tried calling AA to see if there were options for MIA-DOH-JRO but they showed no avail. I checked the BA Avios site to look for Qatar availabilty but I couldn't find JRO either.
For you AAa members, any creative ideas? Any way to reduce BA's high surcharges? Or alternate/hidden city ideas?
Thank you in advance!

I'd try AA metal into London. In order to fly to JRO, you have a few options. BA can get you to NBO, and then take Precision Air into Arusha. Obviously, BA has the huge surcharges for that one leg. The other two carriers into JRO that might work are KLM from Amsterdam and Turkish Airways from IST. Don't know if you have enough Star Alliance miles to do that, though. As you noted, Qatar does fly in from Doha, but award seats are very few.

QR is for sure the way to go if you can find availability. QR generally doesn't release any business award seats on the US-DOH routes on Fridays or Saturdays, with Thurs & Sun being hit or miss depending on the city. Mon/Tues/Wed will have much more space.

Using your BA account, search all of QR's US gateways to DOH, not just MIA. Think ATL, IAH, DFW, ORD, IAD, etc. Find space on the long segment, then search the DOH-JRO flight separately. From most gateways it looks like this will require an overnight in DOH, make sure you keep the dates straight.

If you find flights that line up on BA, call AA and give the AAgent the flights segment by segment. You can then have them search for the flight from MIA to the gateway on AA, which they can include in the same award.

weird taxes on reward ticket
 

Hi,

Looking on a reward ticket possibility EUR-NA and finding weird taxes and fees.
The availability is BA both ways with connection in LHR, and I know they have huge LHR taxes but -
one way outbound, only available in Y, if I want to book it, the taxes are ~$270
one way inbound, only available in F, taxes are ~$500
roundtrip, same itineraries exactly (outbound Y, inbound F, BA flights, connections in LHR) total taxes ~$470.

HUH?

BA adds major carrier imposed surcharges. This is a known issue with BA flights. It's why there's in general award availability on BA flights even when none on others.

It's not the taxes or the LHR PSC that varies; it's the carrier-imposed surcharges that AA collects for award travel on BA. Those surcharges can vary considerably, depending on where the award travel originates. Thus a roundtrip award issued on a single ticket originating in Europe will have different carrier-imposed fees that two one ways, where one originates in Europe, and the other originates in the U.S.

Thank you for your help! We found MIA-DOH-DAR for 75,000 and $19 in taxes/fees. Sure beats 75k and $600 on BA!

Help with ??? on BA flights via AA miles?
 

I'm not sure if I understand exactly how the oneworld partner awards work so please bare with me.

I've searched on the BA website for a trip from JFK-BKK in business and found award availability. The flights are both on BA. It goes JFK-LHR-BKK. Is this a valid iteniary to book with aa miles via customer service and will it only cost me the 70K miles?

You can book BA flights on AA.com. No need to go through customer service. Huge fees will apply.

To fly to Asia on one AA award from the US, you have to go westbound.
To go JFK-LHR, LHR-BKK would require 2 awards
Additionally, you will be charged a hefty amount in fuel surcharges if you use BA for award travel

https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-p...ward-chart.jsp
Travel to Asia1 and Asia2 both indicate "Transpacific only"

Read the Wikiposts and threads:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...aster-thd.html


http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...solidated.html


http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ssistance.html

:eek:

IAD-LHR-MAA BA RT adds $520 taxes
 

Any way to avoid it? Using AA miles.
It doesnt have to be through LHR. Would love to fly Etihad!

You are confusing real taxes and carrier imposed surcharges on awards(=100% airline profit).
Real taxes are the same on the same route/class of travel for all airlines.
Surcharges can trigger additional real taxes if the flight goes from 'non revenue" to "revenue"

Ideas to Avoid BA flight to anywhere using AA Miles
 

Seems like AA pushes customers to use BA [at least in part] for flights to Europe, Africa, etc with a high cost of taxes and fees.... How can I get around this when i am trying to fly to Europe or Africa using AA miles??

Best thing to do is search for existing threads with lots of useful information shared by others. ;)

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...solidated.html.

AA doesn't so much push as flyers avoid using BA, leaving BA with plenty of award availability.

Thread closed. /Moderator

better understanding taxes/fees on combined AA/BA awards
 

More of an academic curiosity than anything else, but I need help better understanding taxes/fees assessed on combined AA/BA award tickets (and I'm not talking about the UK APD or BA YQ fees)...

I currently have an AA award ticket on AA100 JFK-LHR in business class. Taxes/fees totaled $5.60 (just the US security fee). I'm now looking to simply add a connecting BA LHR-VCE business class award segment. AA is quoting an add/collect of $86.70 due to BA taxes/fess. That seems high, especially since there is no UK APD due (LHR connection is <24hrs). For comparison purposes, on AA.com the standalone LHR-VCE business class award segment prices out at just $65.70 in total taxes/fees (which correctly includes the UK APD). Although not exactly relevant, a BA Avios award booking prices at just $40 in taxes/fees for the exact same flight.

Any idea why it's costing $21 more to simply transit LHR as opposed to originating there for the same flight segment? Shouldn't transiting LHR be cheaper in taxes/fees considering there's no APD involved?

-FlyerBeek

It may have to do with the US taxes changing as the BA YQ might trigger some additional US fees.