New to site. Trying to book ff award tickets from JFK to Paris. I believe there was going to be a huge fuel surcharge. Is this common to all programs? Is there a way to avoid this surcharge? thanks!!

sure fly to a different country ot city and use low costs, or use France as your stopover, or depending on your program, you can pay the taxes with miles, so.... many options available...

Hi & Welcome to Flyertalk! You will get better feedback if you can provide trip/flight details, such as airline, when you going, if you have any flexibility in travel, etc.

What frequent flier program are you using and who are you trying to fly on? That can make a huge difference in fuel surcharges.

If you have a lot of time/pain medication on hand, check this thread out.

To stress what halothane said -- it can depend on which carrier and which FF program you're using.

General rule seems to be that for award travel if you're using a US FF program, even though you may be actually flying on a non-US carrier, you're less likely to pay a fuel surcharge. For example, I checked out a Germany to Australia routing on One World (Cathay Pacific via London) on AA and on a European OW FF program. Same routing, same flights, tax/fees on AA was under $150 but on the European FF program was ~$500!

Similarly, most US carriers don't include a fuel surcharge while most European carriers do. If you're purchasing a ticket (rather than redeeming an award), check out alternative carriers, e.g., Delta from US to Paris versus Air France on the same route, and you'll probably find the Delta ticket to be much less than the Air France ticket for the same class/cabin.

So-called ''fuel surcharges'' on award tickets are a big fraud on consumers. Travellers should identify the airlines that perpertrate this fraud and then avoid them on all flights. Fuel is an essential for operating the plane, not an extra.

Some European carriers have been backing away from fuel surcharges lately, like SAS and LOT, so it pays to research the carrier on this issue.

Then there is one US-based carrier that is the rotten apple in that basket, and as one would expect, it is DL. They are are only US-based carrier that imposes these surcharges, although so far only on flights that originate outside the US. Those of us based in Europe, for example, would have to be insane to use DL as a carrier of choice.

Just booked one way JFK-LHR on American Airlines First Class for 62500 miles and only $2.50 in taxes and fees. Never seen anything that low before. A sharp contrast to the return flight LCY-JFK for 50000 miles and $347.77 in taxes and fees.

which won't help the OP since he wants an award ticket presumably on an EU airline

Here's another thread that can be of use:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/star-...es-awards.html

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While that $347.77 includes the BA fuel surcharge, a good part of the charge is the air passenger duty that the U.K. imposes on all U.K. departures. You would have to pay the APD even on an AA award flight from LHR to JFK.

Good point. Just for interest I checked out LHR-JFK on AA and the fees jumped to $184.10. So ..... cheap to enter, expensive to leave. Perhaps they're trying to encourage immigration !