VMarie

I've recently learned a hard lesson that I wanted to share with the forum. We've been Frontier Airlines (for domestic flights) AAdvantage card holders (Central America, etc.) for quite some time. We are planning our first ever family trip to Europe for the three of us for travel in November this year, and I was hoping to use award miles for at least two of the tickets. I was thrilled to note that we could get a RT ticket to Spain in off-season for a mere 40K points from American! Woo-hoo! I did check availability and it looked good. Based on this info, I signed up for new Advantage cards to acquire bonus points.

Mistake number one: Not checking out the FEES involved before making a decision on which airline award card to acquire. You won't know this until you actually get to the point of purchase of the award ticket.

Yes, AA charges a mere 40K points for a RT ticket to Europe off-peak AND about $650 in fees per ticket! That adds up to almost $2,000 in fees for our three tickets!

Mistake number two: Then assuming all airlines must charge similar fees for similar tickets to Europe.

Au contraire. United Airlines charges more points - 60K RT, but much lower fees - approx $95 in fees per ticket!

I may be missing even better deals. I have no idea because I can't find any charts out there that compare points AND fees. If anyone knows of such a chart, please share the URL.

Thanks!

amer_can

A couple of years ago,BA offered cc with 50,000 miles on signing and 50,000 for 1st 3,000$. Got them and more as I used the card for household purchaces, etc..Travelled to Europe fo 45,000 and taxes..about $400 once then trip 2 cost 90,000 miles (ugh) and agsin fees, taxes 500$. Concidered both these business class tickets a bargin but you do have to cough up the fees as the Gov't and/or Admin. always has their hands in your pockets. Each airline and country has different policies and you must dance to their tunes. However ,am still going to wonderful places on a little $$$..

cruiseluv

$650 in fees??!! That's outrageous! I just got AA award tickets for Chile to Newark and paid $50 in fees per ticket. This was for their regular award level, not the low FF saver that you got . But still much higher fees that I paid on FF on United for Newark to Buenos Aires (about $5 in taxes/fees!). Wonder what the fees would have been if you had chosen the regular award of 60,000 miles per ticket? I recently was able to get for my son with AA miles such an award for a R/T from Chicago to Spain in Iberia and the taxes/fees were minimal.

BigRuss

You just said "Europe" and "Spain" in comparing AA and United. You need to do some more research.

First, unless AA is now charging a fuel fee, the cost seems high. BA is the worst deal because it charges each passenger for fuel. Are you quoting the price on a BA flight that is an AA codeshare? If you don't know, go find out.

Second, fees are based on taxes and landing/security/passenger fees charged to the airline. Is your United quote a flight to Spain or a flight somewhere else in Europe?

Without a breakdown of fees, your comparison is meaningless and the airlines have to provide that information.

Sidny

I just priced a RT direct ORD-CDG for next February and found 40K miles with $85 in fees...when I last went to Paris in Feb 2011 the miles/fees were exactly the same. However, I had the same experience as you recently when I was playing around with reward flights and came up with 40K mi flights with $600 in fees! I was shocked and that maybe it was a programming issue on the website and since I wasn't really planning a trip I blew it off and didn't pursue it.

So what gives? I just checked ORD to Venice and came up with 40K mi + $400 in fees. Does anyone know how these fees are calculated? Is it based on the destination? IMHO...this is not a reward (free) ticket, just a discounted ticket. Paying just $100 in fees I would consider "free" ;-)

I'm going to post in the Airline forum and see if we can get some inside info.

Gretchen

40K? I can't even get a domestic ticket for that with USAir!! Did they offer less fees for more miles? It is harder and harder to use FF miles, I think.

mrwunrfl

I would bet that ORD-CDG did not involve British Airways but ORD-VCD did. Taxes and government fees vary by origin, routing, and destination, but the big difference you see is probably a BA fuel surcharge being passed on to you.

see this post and others by Gardyloo on the same thread:
http://www.fodors.com/community/air-...omment-7658110

VMarie

Big Russ, Yes, of course I priced the same destination, same dates, etc. on United as on American! How else could I be making a true comparison?

Gretchen - Yes I fell off my chair when I saw 40K on the awards chart for a RT to Europe (off-peak)! Was bragging to all, until I had my balloon burst with $630 in fees.

Fees do not vary by award level used, for those that asked. They can vary by route and carrier, see below.

I have since found out that American's share code partner, British Airways, may be the culprit on the fees. If I am willing to circumvent them and add inconvenience and time with a third stop using only American or Iberia, and possibly lose a vacation day with the time/expense of a evening layover, I'm told I could reduce the fees.

United still comes out on top for us. Much more convenient routing from Denver, less fees regardless. The drawback - 20K more in points!!

VMarie

P.S. Thanks to mrwunrfl, I did even more checking. Honestly, the 40K points on AA for a RT to Europe is a joke. At this award level they only show you BA flights, with that hefty BA fee. Bump up to the next award level of 60K, however, and an plethora of flight options are unveiled, including non BA flights that incur only a minor fee. Again, less convenient stops and routing (at least from Denver) but back to the reasonable fees of under !00 USD.

MmePerdu

I wonder if there isn't some confusion going on in referring to the fees as something the airline charges vs taxes and fees they collect but are not the recipients. I mention it because the 2 American Airline FF tickets I booked most recently both incurred fees of $5 each. Both were 1 way, to CDG a year ago and another to Shanghai booked several weeks ago. I understand fees on tickets to LHR are quite high because of fees charged by the airport. In any case, I hesitate to assume it's the airline who should be the target of our ire.

mrwunrfl

But the 40,000 miles + $400 deal is not bad compared to that 60,000 miles + what $80? deal.

Instead of paying 20,000 miles you pay $320. That is 1.6 cents per mile, which is a good deal. And that would earn 640 miles

Interesting: when I checked the earnings rate I saw that using that card gets you 10% back on miles redeemed for awards, up to 10,000 miles. So it could be 36K or 54K net miles for an award.

And the 40K deal is a good one if you don't have the 60K.

mrwunrfl

MmePerdu, the UK Airline Passenger Duty is described in the post I linked above as is the BA fuel surcharge.

kenav

I have used FF miles to pay for trips with AA with no such astronomical fees. OTOH, I also have Delta FF miles and I could not, for the life of me, find a R/T ticket I could afford with 75k miles, even in the off season.
Went R/T from JFK to Zurich this past April, it was $65 pp in taxes. We were charged 70k miles sitting in <u>business class one way!</u> (economy back). I figure this was a great deal considering, as I said above, I couldn't find trips to Europe with Delta in the off season in economy for 75k miles.

I've also gone R/T to Europe a few other times (in September, economy class) using AA FF miles with approx. the same amount in taxes.

I really don't understand how you could be charged this much. So, I'm not sure where you're looking. Did you speak to an agent? Did he/she give you the total of what you would be responsible for? Did you first get the tickets and then find out about this fee? Also, how far in advance of your trip did you get the tickets?

Maybe it is BA that's the culprit, as you say. Good luck.

mrwunrfl

"that card" being the Citi AAdvantage Visa.

kenav

I see that this is the first post from this poster. I would like to see what other posts he/she might contribute to, just to make sure he/she is "for real".

kawh

i went on a big tear about this a while back. felt totally ripped off when we booked 'free' tix with british air. (over $600 each to fly sfo-italy)

HOWEVER-- i have since learned that some airlines (like british air) charge EVERYONE that much in taxes. on a recent booking using money-- united and british airways were almost the same price SFO-London. However-- uniteds taxes and fees were about $200 and British Air's taxes and fees were about $600. That's for a paid ticket!! b.z. has a $400 fuel surcharge to london.

yikes! that makes it really difficult to compare or know what you are facing with a chart. you just have to look around and check out the taxes/fees normally charged for flights. they really vary-- depending on airline and where they are based.

Huggy

Is the poster "for real"? Why is there always a question about someone being real?

When I saw this post this morning, I checked out FF flights to various European locations on AA. Most fees were several hundred dollars, Brussels being $450 to $500 from my location. Some were more and some were less.

Yes I am real and have made several FF reward flights to Europe. Guess what, they are not free anymore and it is the airlines business plan to raise revenue. Get used to it.

kenav

I just looked this up. Yes, depending on the airline or city you stop off in - London being the worst - you can pay a few hundred dollars in "fees". If London was involved the fees ranged for $400 - $600! If not stopping in London (example: a direct flight to Zurich), the fees were $63. Quite a difference!

Obviously I would suggest: if possible keep away from changing planes in London.

tuscanlifeedit

LGW fees seem to be less than Heathrow, but I don't fly BA so I won't say for sure.

A few months ago, we got two tickets PIT <> LGW on USAirways for 35K miles/points each and $190.00 in taxes and fees. These tickets are for a trip in mid October. I couldn't get the exact days I wanted, but only had to go a few days forward to get these tickets. If I had booked them a little sooner, I could have had my exact dates.

As far as I'm concerned this is a very good deal, and we seem not to have the trouble booking award tickets that Gretchen mentioned. We do have the rewards cards that give us 5K discounts.

Sidny

So for AA awards, it does seem to be the BA factor that increases the fees. I'll keep that in mind for future and try to book AA direct flights w/o the switch to BA in Europe.

As VMarie originally posted, I'd love to see a good comparison chart that takes typical fees into account. When I was recently looking for a card to switch to, none of my online research took into account fees.