My first reservation was made on Jan 19, 2015, an award ticket for roundtrip by Finnair, HKG-HEL-HKG (AY070 & AY069 on Mar 15 & Mar 24) in economy class, 45,000 miles will burn. It was confirmed by email, their first CS agent mentioned the Tax+Fuel surcharge approximately HK$1440.00 (Similar to a paid ticket on AY web site, HK$1395)

By Personally reason, I did not issue the ticket, and let it automatically cancelled on the ticketing deadline Jan 22.

Theee days ago, I re-book the same award ticket with same schedule HKG-HEL-HKG (AY070 & AY069), with same flying date, same burning 45,000 miles.

I am shocked, I got an email confirmation from another CS agent, the Tax+Fuel surcharge markup to approximately HK$2500.00 (almost 180% of the first reservation)

I so believe that HKG & HEL airport security tax did not changed in last few weeks.

I called the CS hotline again, their agent explained the surcharge calculated by system, and never a mistake is happened. Markup tax+fuel in short period usually caused by shift of currencies exchange rate.

Finally, I cancelled all reservation, by markup 180% tax-fuel, very unreasonable.

Here is the email from CX Asia Miles to show my truth story, very disappointed about this program could rise the fax+fuel up to 180% for an partner award ticket.


First reservation email on Jan 19, 2015:

Dear Mr XXX

Thank you for contacting the Asia Miles Service Centre.

We are delighted to let you know that your flights have been booked and confirmed under booking reference Y----7, as shown on the itinerary below.

Should you wish to confirm the issuance of your award ticket, please provide us with the following information before 22 January 2015, 5PM Hong Kong local time, otherwise your booking will be automatically
cancelled:

- credit card details (card number, expiry date and exact cardholder�s name for the necessary airport and security taxes as well as for the fuel surcharge)
- local contact details for notification of any schedule changes prior to departure

After we receive your reply, we will deduct 45,000 Asia Miles from your account and debit the necessary airport taxes, fuel surcharge (approximately HKD 1,440) against your credit card only when we issue your e-Ticket.

The amount of the taxes and surcharge will be confirmed at time of ticket issuance, subject to currency fluctuation, and will be shown on the e-Ticket.


Kind regards

Chloe Ho
Customer Relations Executive
Reservations & Ticketing
Asia Miles Service Centre


CATHAY PACIFIC LOYALTY PROGRAMMES BOOKING REF Y---7
HONG KONG
HONG KONG -SAR OF CHINA- XXX/XX XXX MR

SERVICE FROM TO DEPART
ARRIVAL
-------------- ------------------- ---------------------- -------
-------
FINNAIR - AY 070
HONG KONG HK HELSINKI FI 0045 0545
SUN 15MAR INTERNATIONAL HELSINKI VANTAA
NON STOP TERMINAL 1 TERMINAL 2 DURATION 11:00
RESERVATION CONFIRMED - X ECONOMY
ON BOARD: HOT MEAL/HOT MEAL
AIRCRAFT OWNER: AY FINNAIR
EQUIPMENT: AIRBUS INDUSTRIE A340-300
AY FREQUENT FLYER CX--------- XXX/XX XXX MR
SEAT 26J NO SMOKING SEAT CONFIRMED FOR XXX/XX XXX MR

FINNAIR - AY 069
HELSINKI FI HONG KONG HK 2340 1530
TUE 24MAR HELSINKI VANTAA INTERNATIONAL 25MAR
NON STOP TERMINAL 2 TERMINAL 1 DURATION 09:50
RESERVATION CONFIRMED - X ECONOMY
ON BOARD: HOT MEAL/HOT MEAL
AIRCRAFT OWNER: AY FINNAIR
EQUIPMENT: AIRBUS INDUSTRIE A340-300
AY FREQUENT FLYER CX---------- XXX/XX XXX MR
SEAT 26C NO SMOKING SEAT CONFIRMED FOR XXX/XX XXX MR


Second reservation email on Jan 28, 2015:

Dear Mr XXX

Thank you for contacting the Asia Miles Service Centre.

We are delighted to let you know that your flights have been booked and confirmed under booking reference Y----B, as shown on the itinerary below.

Should you wish to confirm the issuance of your award ticket, please provide the following details by return email no later than 2 February 2015, 5PM Hong Kong local time. Otherwise, your award booking will be automatically cancelled:

- local contact details to notify you any schedule changes prior to departure
- credit card details : card number, expiry date and exact cardholder�s name for the necessary airport, security taxes, the fuel surcharge

After we receive your reply, we will deduct 45,000 Asia Miles from your account and debit the necessary airport taxes, fuel surcharge (approximately HKD2,500) against your credit card only when we issue your e-Ticket.

The amount of the taxes and surcharge will be confirmed at time of ticket issuance, subject to currency fluctuation, and will be shown on the e-Ticket.


Kind regards

Kitty Wan
Customer Relations Executive
Reservations & Ticketing
Asia Miles Service Centre


CATHAY PACIFIC AIRWAYS LTD DATE 28JANUARY15
CATHAY PACIFIC LOYALTY PROGRAMMES BOOKING REF Y----B
HONG KONG
HONG KONG -SAR OF CHINA- XXX/XX XXX MR

SERVICE FROM TO DEPART
ARRIVAL
-------------- ------------------- ---------------------- -------
-------
FINNAIR - AY 070
HONG KONG HK HELSINKI FI 0045 0545
SUN 15MAR INTERNATIONAL HELSINKI VANTAA
NON STOP TERMINAL 1 TERMINAL 2 DURATION 11:00
RESERVATION CONFIRMED - X ECONOMY
ON BOARD: HOT MEAL/HOT MEAL
AIRCRAFT OWNER: AY FINNAIR
EQUIPMENT: AIRBUS INDUSTRIE A340-300
AY FREQUENT FLYER CX--------- XXX/XX XXX MR
SEAT 26J NO SMOKING SEAT CONFIRMED FOR XXX/XX XXX MR

FINNAIR - AY 069
HELSINKI FI HONG KONG HK 2340 1530
TUE 24MAR HELSINKI VANTAA INTERNATIONAL 25MAR
NON STOP TERMINAL 2 TERMINAL 1 DURATION 09:50
RESERVATION CONFIRMED - X ECONOMY
ON BOARD: HOT MEAL/HOT MEAL
AIRCRAFT OWNER: AY FINNAIR
EQUIPMENT: AIRBUS INDUSTRIE A340-300
AY FREQUENT FLYER CX--------- XXX/XX XXX MR
SEAT 27C NO SMOKING SEAT CONFIRMED FOR XXX/XX XXX MR

I would just ticket anyway. Without a fuel quote.
I would normally find out about it later and challenge it if I feel it's unjustified. Call centre agents/Customer Relations Executives can't issue binding YQ quotes, I had one quote me US$20 and it turns out to be closer to US$180.

The first quote should be right (from https://www.britishairways.com/trave...club/_gf/en_hk - CX ticketing will almost always get the same YQ + $50 security charge):



I won't even seek to confirm the misquoted booking to avoid confusion that I agreed to the overpriced YQ. I'll make a fresh booking and tell MPO to ticket it. Not that they can hold seats for more than a short period of time anyway.

The YQ/YR is wrong...

This should be the correct fare calculation - as per SABRE:

TOTAL : HKD 1383.00

Ask MPC to spell out exactly all the taxes and fuel surcharge... and it should be exactly as above. BUT they must specify to AMADEUS that the ticket is to issued in HK and not a general fare quote. Otherwise the YR will show up as due to the fact that AMADEUS is based somewhere in Europe..

Fuel surcharge will be significantly decreased on 01FEB.

Similar things have happened to me before. Redeemed J HKG-ZUR-LHR-HKG recently (with transit in LHR both ways). They quoted something that was really ridiculous (something like HK$5000!). The agent insisted that this was what the system showed up, and so I had to pay it.

I told him it's definitely wrong - I had just redeemed J HKG-LHR-CPH-LHR a week ago. So I told him to check it and get back to me.

He emailed me later and confirmed there was an error - surcharges were only HK$24xx. So yes, it does happen - they sometimes do get it wrong.

I redeemed this route last summer in Business (80,000 Asia miles). At the time, they didn't confirm the exact price for the surcharges and taxes but they the amount they mentioned as the approximate amount was much higher than by doing a dummy booking. In reality, when they charged my card, it was the amount it was supposed to be. So as with the advice above, book the ticket and see what happens. I'm sure the amount will be correct.

Last afternoon, already called the CS hotline again, another CS agent, Stephanie Tsang took my complaint.

Once again, she mentioned all tax+fuel calculated by system, they could not check the breakdown (YR+HK+FI+DQ+XU). Funny thing is, she told HKG Airport Tax Changes Everyday. She never knows the fuel (YR) is published and ruled by Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department.

http://www.cad.gov.hk/english/fuel_surcharge.htm

I also remind her, effective on Feb 1, 2015. The YR will be further reduced, including CX, AY, BA .... and other carriers have business in Hong Kong. She promised me a reply in coming week.

I will post my update here when I got reply from AM CS. How's going on next week.......

I wish I had read this. I booked award ticket, F, from ORD-HKG-ORD on Jan-29.

I used two AMEX cards to pay. One for some miles to top off what was needed (to be charged in USD), and the other to pay for the taxes (to be charged in HKD). I used two to avoid a foreign transaction fee, while maximizing the 3x point bonus from AMEX for air travel! :-)

I check the website today and found it had not been ticketed. Some warning about "Ticket by Jan 28 or it will be cancelled!" Of course, panicked and called MPC. Told it was a problem with two charge cards. Huh? If this was going to be a problem, then why did they accept two in the first place? And why didn't anyone contact me? Were they going to just let the ticket cancel?

Anyway, I pushed hard, not wanting to risk a cancellation. A few hours later got an email confirmation of the eticket. It was preceded by email from AMX telling me my card had been charged in HKD, instead of the USD they promised!

Anyway... probably a $50 ding in FOEX charges.

The ticket shows surcharges of $1338HKD. From reading the above posts, it sounds like YR is the fuel surcharge? It is 712HKD. So if I had waited one more day, I would've saved a little on the taxes/surcharges?

Sigh. Oh well....

This is why I try to use AM only for upgrades and not book an award seat.... horrible horrible charges....

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 6_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10B142 Safari/8536.25)

Not sure if u checked, AY has a 70Euro redemption charge that is on ay and partner awards.
You never know if it was misquoted in the first quote since it didnt go thru ticketing.
Id say it was left out when u were quoted of 1440.

YQ changes on 1st pf month is nothing new. Happens either way every month.

Kaka does the 70eur apply only to AM but not BAEC? Look at my BAEC screenshot above.

I don't think 70 Eur apply to AM

<XT 1132YR + 120HK + 78FI + 42DQ + 11XU> HKD + 70Eur, it becomes approximately HKD 2000

But my quote is HKD 2500

Can you believe that HK Security Service Charge is HKD13,650 for HKG<>KIX tkt!

HKG-KIX roundtrip should be HKD536. markup > 2500% Seafood price to run everything.........

Are AM & CS selling seafood?

The logo of CX, just tells all of us "Shark Fin"

YR has dropped today..

its now : TOTAL : HKD 963

Asia Miles MUST ask that the ticket be issued in HKG. Otherwise Amadeus defaults it to Europe. If not satisfied, ask them to send to ticketing because you say that you disagree with the taxes as it is wrong.

Again if it is issued in Europe , its