YQ tax not refundable
 

We are all familiar with airlines transforming a large part of the airfare into a
YQ tax (fuel surcharge). Recently, some airlines started to make YQ tax not refundable. I guess the next step will be to make ALL the taxes not refundable.

I noticed this with Diamond Club too. On one particular booking, the total came out to about 250 GBP. As almost 200 GBP is YQ tax (4,50 GBP credit card fee is not refundable either), this means that on a 250 GBP booking (miles only) you only get about 25 GBP back!

Is this normal? Or is it part of the transfer to Miles and More?

I believe this is normal practice amongst UK carriers (BA and BD most certainly do not refund the YQ element on a restricted booking).

Regular tax, APD, is refundable as it is the element paid to the government however some airlines attach a "service fee" or "handling charge" in order t refund what is rightfully yours. In some cases, this makes it not even worthwhile asking for the bleeding refund :rolleyes:

This is not normal on a mileage booking and is simply not correct. You do get the YQ back on award bookings, otherwise I wouldn't bother making any.

On revenue bookings you don't get it back but then it is not a tax so the airline has no obligation to and I don't think should on a restricted non-refundable fare.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/bmi-d...nue-fares.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/bmi-d...nges-help.html

Tax refund has never been allowed on award CHANGES, which is why when the difference was large enough, I canceled the booking and make a new one. I would lose 29,50 GBP, but this is not working anymore.
What will the next step be, make all the other [airport] taxes non ref either?

you can get tax refunds on award changes by emailing diamond club after making the change. I did exactly this after changing from one flight with £350 worth of taxes to one with only £50 worth of taxes. I received a refund of £300.

Without losing 20 GBP on the change fee??? Impressive

Oh no, they still charged me the £20 change fee seperately (rather than simply deducting it from my refund). Not much chance of avoiding that.

YQ is not a tax. It is a fraudulent shell game by airlines and should be firmly stamped out by consumer protection legislation. Where are our elected leaders?

They are thinking how to tax you when you redeem your points or miles...

Correct. Not sure what the fuss is all about. Any change that lowered the taxes would not result in a refund. Never been any different.

Don't think this is correct. Maybe it depends on the rules of the airline the booking is ticketed with but until December last year you could still get a full refund, including YQ charges, if you cancelled the whole booking (minus £25).

Are you talking specifically about bmi, or on a legal basis?

?? DC may not pro-actively offer refunds on changes that lowered the taxes - but they do make the refunds when requested and that has always been the case. They have no basis on which to keep the additional taxes on these flexible award tickets when changes are made.

Got stung by this today - cancelled a paid booking which the ICC assured me (I specifically asked as I needed to know) could be cancelled for just £60 + admin fee. No mention of YQ not being refundable. IMHO, they need to mention this explicitly when booking. Had they said it at the time, I'd be perfectly fine about it.

Interestingly, I can see nothing on the website about YQ not being refundable

Website terms and conditions

General Conditions of Carriage

Whether they could call YQ "reasonable" is debatable, I guess.

I raised it with the @flybmi Twitter account, so it's been sent to CS, but I was a little miffed when the ICC agent today told me that my refund would be missing a large part of what I expected.

What makes it worse is that BMI substantially overcharges for fuel.

For example, today I went to book a OW ticket from LHR to BRU for Mrs.Carolinian. I checked BMI and found a paid fare of GBP 132 including GBP 68 of ''taxes and fees''. I could use 4500 DC miles and pay the GBP 68. However on checking BA, I found an all-in fare of GBP 67.30 including taxes and fees of GBP 48.30. Of course it was a no brainer which option I used.

But does it really cost BMI or its codeshare partners that much more for fuel to fly their planes (particularly since LH took over) than BA or are they just ripping us off ?