MarioRossi

Hi all,

I am currently booking a redemption. The routing takes me from FRA to LHR with the return starting in HKG and going back to FRA via LHR.

If I price the segments separately, I receive the following:
HKG-LHR 13,83€
HKG-LHR-FRA 78,78€

Obviously, the European leg prices at 59,90€. It would stand to reason that the outbound from Frankfurt to London would also be priced roughly the same (say +/- 15€ due to differences in taxes).

The total for all three flight would hence be 78,78+59,90 = 133,63€

However, BA insists that the taxes for this flight are 299,65€ per person. I called them twice now, each time they say they have to stick with what their system quotes them and that it would probably be the flight from Frankfurt to London pricing higher. However, this would mean that this single segment was being charged at no less than 220,87€. While I know that BA's fuel surcharges can be high, this seems rather unlikely.

Anyone of you with some insight on this? How can I get them to check the taxes?

cheers
Mario

revan

Edit - misread the OP - will leave this here anyway!

The HK goverment stopped carriers from applying the carrier surcharge on flights from HK. As such, on Y redemption LHR-HKG, YQ is Ł94.50, and for HKG-LHR it is zero. There's also no UK APD on the return, nor any German charges


Here's the breakdown of charges on your example (in Y):
FRA-LHR-HKG

Government, authority and airport charges Per adult
Passenger Service Charge - United Kingdom GBP31.35
Airport Security Charge - Germany GBP7.10
Air Transport Tax - Germany GBP32.30
Passenger Service Charge (International) - Germany GBP20.70
Total government, authority and airport charges* GBP91.45
More information
British Airways fees and carrier charges Per adult
Carrier imposed charge GBP82.20
Total British Airways fees and carrier charges GBP82.20
Total taxes, fees, carrier imposed charges or fuel surcharge, where applicable, per person GBP173.65

HKG-LHR-FRA

Passenger Service Charge - United Kingdom GBP22.47
Air Passenger Departure Tax - Hong Kong GBP10.80
Total government, authority and airport charges* GBP33.27
More information
British Airways fees and carrier charges Per adult
Carrier imposed charge GBP19.20
Total British Airways fees and carrier charges GBP19.20
Total taxes, fees, carrier imposed charges or fuel surcharge, where applicable, per person GBP52.47

nux

No, it doesn't. You can't just search for individual segments and add the costs together, the itinerary is priced as a whole.

Is what you're trying to book FRA-LHR//HKG-LHR-FRA? Why not just book them separately?

Ldnn1

+1. If there's a saving, simply book separately.

Generally the only reason not to do so is if you think you'll want to cancel, so only want to pay one cancellation fee, but that would hardly seem a consideration here.

irishguy28

Something not quite right in your explanation.

you seem to want to book FRA-LHR and HKG-LHR-FRA.

Yet when you list the prices, these are not the routes/prices you use.

Adding the "three flights" (given as HKG-LHR, HKG-LHR-FRA) makes no sense because you are not going to travel HKG-LHR twice.

Also, you pluck the figure of €59.90 from thin air, call it "obvious", and yet this figure is not reachable based on any manipulation of the other figures mentioned.

So, basically, not sure what you are talking about.

What you may be falling victim to is a dollop of APD if one of your flights starts in LHR; and taxes don't neatly add together, as the taxies/levies charged can vary depending on where you start and/or which other flights are on the same ticket.

KARFA

The main reason for booking a return is when using a 2-4-1, but this doesn't seem to be the case for the OP, and you are right that other than that two singles are usually better.

Ldnn1

Indeed I nearly added "(other than if using a 241)" but left it out for simplicity... which on FT inevitably backfires.

callum9999

It's horrendously explained, and their maths is wrong if so, but it looks like they attempted to subtract the HKG-LHR cost from the HKG-LHR-FRA cost to get the cost for LHR-FRA.

From ITA matrix, BA from FRA-LHR and HKG-LHR-FRA should cost €111.32 when searched individually but the OP is being quoted €299.75 when combined for whatever reason (ITA wouldn't combine them). Though as said above, there shouldn't be any disadvantage in booking them separately (and it would probably be cheaper anyway assuming they can use a RFS).

Cymro

I wonder if the OP is assuming that, because there are no surcharges when starting ex-HKG, or indeed anywhere on CX (just taxes and airport fees), the same would apply to a BA redemption.

(It doesn't - but HKG prohibits carrier surcharges on flights that originate there, which is why the HKG-LHR leg is so much cheaper).

callum9999

The only flights in their booking are BA short haul or ex-HKG (from what I can tell with their convoluted explanation!), so there shouldn't be any fuel/carrier surcharges in there.