JIMCHI

I booked the following trip for 2 of us using Avios points. BA charged me $1873.74 each in taxes and fees + $25.00 for booking through their call center for a total of $1898.74 per person. This seemed high so I checked the taxes, etc. by creating an award reservation (but not confirming it) on BA.com and came up with $1459.86 each (excluding the $25 booking fee) for a difference of $413.88 per person).

SEA-LHR (F) - LHR-VIE (C) immediate connection at LHR date June 7, 2021 (taxes and fees = $721.70)
MUC - LHR (C) 5 day stopover at LHR date June 19, 2021
LHR - DEN (F) date June 24, 2021 (taxes & fees MUC-LHR (stop) - DEN $738.16

Can anyone help me understand why there is such a huge difference in the taxes and fees from what BA charged me vs. what's shown in an online booking?

Thanks for any help !

jerry a. laska

When you did your search, did you search and price each flight separately? If so, this does not reflect the US fuel surcharges for each segment as it would be priced when booking an ex-US round trip.

When you book an ex-US round trip (which you would be doing if using a 241, as you noted you were doing in another thread) the US fuel surcharges are assessed on each segment. The US surcharges are higher than UK or EU surcharges.

See these threads (among others):
Massive Avios tax hike or gremlins with BA IT?
RT Fuel Surcharge Greater than Sum of OWs

JIMCHI

I did not book each leg separately. However, booking with Avios online doesn't allow for an open jaw so I did a search for SEA-VIE and it came up with the connection via LHR. I then did the search MUC-DEN with a stopover in LHR. The $$ I show are the ones shown as though I was ready to confirm them. I have to presume that the $$ amounts shown on BA.com reflect all surcharges. Even so, they certainly wouldn't be off by ~ $400 per person.

TTmex

Also I've noted that most call centres, US included are hopeless at tax calculatons. I only trust the UK centre. I've had upgrade tax quoted at 400 usd when the reality was less than two dollars

JIMCHI

I don't believe BA has any U.S. call centers any longer. The Jacksonville center was closed several years ago and I believe all calls now go to the UK.

TTmex

​​​​​​When UK centre is closed is directed to India I believe..when you call US line outside UK hours it goes to non UK centre for sure

GinFizz

Unfortunately it can be (and indeed is ) this much ... Putting together your same booking on MatrixITA comes up with a total figure for taxes and surcharges of 1894.65 USD - so the figure your paid is correct.

As mentioned above by jerry a. laska the YQ surcharge for USA-to-EU/LHR for premium cabin travel is significantly larger than for EU/LHR-to-US. In your case the YQ for MUC-LHR-DEN for booking in J/F is 265 USD, but for the reverse routing (DEN-LHR-MUC) the figure is 700 USD (a difference of 435 USD per person!). If you book this as part of return trip starting in the US, you will be charged the taxes based on the ex-US direction for all legs of the trip

In this case there is a real advantage here and not much downside as far as I can see, to making this as two separate bookings:
SEA-LHR-VIE (you will pay the ex-US surcharges)
MUC-LHR-DEN (you should only pay the ex-EU surcharges)

jerry a. laska

I just tried a cash booking using the multi trip engine at ba.com and ended up with the following:




The LHR-DEN in my search is in Club but this should not affect the fuel surcharges or other taxes and fees. Ex-US surcharges are substantial when compared with other originations.

jerry a. laska

Agreed, when booking ex-US using Avios it is usually best to book 2 OWs to minimize fuel surcharges. In this case though, I don't believe the OP can do this as the OP mentioned in another thread that he was using a 241.

Anonba

In the contact centres we dont manually calculate the taxes. If you are making a new booking or changing a booking the system quotes the taxes for the itinerary.

JIMCHI

Thanks to all of you for checking this out for me and the helpful information. It's obvious now that booking 2 one-ways is a smarter way to go but not possible with the 2-4-1 voucher. It certainly makes the value of that voucher considerably less, but still a good deal.

KARFA

It is sometimes the better way to go, but sometimes it isn't for example if booking a UK-US rtn. You can do it with a 2-4-1. There is a lot more information in the wiki for the 241 master thread linked to in the dashboard.

TTmex

Yeh. That's what the lady in the UK centre told me. It's happened four times now that I've called out of uk hours and I've had the following results.

UuA to First for outbound. 22500 avios plus 420 USD in taxes. Called uk centre and system quoted USD 1.5 plus the avios.

UuA to First for inbound a week later when came avail. Quoted 365 GBP plus 25000 avios. Called uk centre, just had to pay avios, no tax.

UuA to Club both ways. Quoted 345 GBP per person (we're three) plus 50000 avios each. Called UK line in hours and paid 24 quid per person plus avios.

UuA ET to CE. Quoted by twitter 6500 avios plus 65 quid. Couldn't do it online. Never took it, so not sure if calling would have been different.

So seems when manual calculatons are made, the calculatons are way off what comes out of the system.

In terms of the OP's post I see nothing went wrong, so my post not relevant here. But did want to just put it out there that manual calculatons do seem to get done and not in passenger's favor.

Thankfully we have the gold team

Anonba

Well if do a manual quote the system generates a quote for new taxes however yes there is still room for human error. We still have to compare new quote to old figure on ticket and that is considered the manual way. There is a more automated option which simply quotes the additional.

My point is that agents like myself arent manually checking to see which individual taxes are required and at what level. We put in the itinerary required, quote and the system would show the taxes then applicable.