oliver2002

Note the good side of the YQ system alignment is now you don't pay YQ for segments anymore, so a decent D or B fare can be maxed out in terms of segments and milked for a mileage run nicely. Like the OU D fares inside Europe....

whiskey_sk

I bet 99% of the people spending hundreds to thousands of $$$ on "award" tickets really do appreciate the great opportunity to milk the OU MR

htb

LH is smarter than that. At the peak of prices they abolished the "fuel surcharge" and replaced it with an "international surcharge" and a "domestic surcharge", like they were completely surprised that they forgot to factor in the international or domestic character of a flight when setting up the fares.

No way they will reduce that for no apparent reason, like falling fuel prices ;-)

HTB.

htb

;-) there or not -- I hate this argument because it is none. After all, you don't need to collect >100k miles under the promise of "free awards" to buy a 600€ coach fare.

HTB.

oliver2002

Lark or nightingale...

TRAVELSIG

Bump on this as fuel prices drop - as customers when will this be reflected in revised lower surcharges? It does seem reasonable to request.

dj_jay_smith

Of course you have to remember that most airlines hedge their fuel in order to reduce the impact of volatility in the price. So actually it is possible that in most cases the recent reduction of fuel prices has not yet hit the airlines and they are still using stock purchased at a fixed higher price.

Also, I would expect that they would be relectant to reduce them to soon as they could easily rise again quickly and then they would have to adjust the surcharges again, and of course each change requires a lot of admin effort.

Plus of course, it could enhance their profits!

I would expect that we need to wait perhaps even a few months before we see any changes, and then as soon as one airline adjust them then it will have a cascading effect.

htb

No. LH doesn't have any fuel surcharges any more. They anticipated falling oil prices and renamed them "domestic" and "international" surcharge... Even before that there was pretty much only one way for the fuel surcharge with LH, independent of the actual development of the oil price: up.

HTB.

GUWonder

Absent regulatory/legal action to restrict airline surcharges, customers shouldn't expect much airline fee financial relief arising from an airline that is materially benefitting from lower fuel prices in an environment with high surcharges being extremely sticky.

Concerto

This seems to represent a decent reduction on the fuel surcharges (€33 per segment), so a 4 segment European award round trip might actually turn out to be a bit better value than previously:

http://www.miles-and-more.com/online...l=en&cid=18002

Valid until 25 March 2015.

BristolTraveller

Watch the small print. It's only very specific routes and intra-DE flights.

(It looks like they've targeted countries where you can use BA/Avios Reward Flight Saver to only pay £35 for all taxes, although it's still nowhere near as good as Avios for s/haul between the UK and Europe).

NA-Flyer

The latest update on the fuel prices drop which is about 42% during the course of the year:

http://www.iata.org/publications/eco...-analysis.aspx

Com'n LH it is time that you evaluate your YQ and lower it decently ASAP @:-)

warakorn

Well, at the end, most passengers are interested in the final price. It does not matter if the base fare is super cheap and the "surcharge" is super expensive.
Since LH faces competition on most of its routes, I cannot arbitrarily charge a final price whatever it wants.

The people, who care about the "surcharge", are mostly looking for award travel.
They should already know that the "surcharge" is not there to cover short term fuel hikes, the "surcharge" is there to milk the mileage redemption folks. No one has forced them to become a member of M&M.
Thus, where is the incentive for LH to lower its "surcharge"?

Move on!

NA-Flyer

OIL is at $ 50 just right now

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...0KE06V20150105

I predicted in the past that OIL will drop to $ 50 and I was 100% accurate ^

htb

Yes. That would be more than 550€ and 105000 miles for a "free" ticket. Ridiculous! Just like you say: "a way to milk the customers", like any reputable company would do.

HTB.