teacherCanada

I will be chaperoning a group of 48 travellers (students and chaperones) on an 18 day educational excursion to Europe in March 2011. Our travel agency has informed us our departure taxes are $451.25 per person. I accept the concept that departure fees and taxes must be paid. My question is ... how can I ensure that this figure is the actual amount? Is there a mechanism available to regular people (like me) to find out departure taxes or is it kept hidden or under many layers of gobbledegook so only travel agents and similar professionals can figure them out?

For what it's worth, we fly from Toronto to Paris (with a short stop in Montreal), Rome to Athens, and Athens to Toronto (with a connection in Frankfurt).

tC

Seamus

That does sound high but there are five segments and airports in five countries.
You can ask the travel agency to provide a breakdown of the cost including itemization of the taxes and fees. If that is not something you want to do you could try pricing out the itinerary on a site that provides a breakdown, like http://matrix.itasoftware.com

NoFlyZone

That high a number sounds like it includes all taxes, not just departure taxes, plus some (all?) fees. If you are paying that amoung in advance as part of your flight ticket, the breakdown (although coded) will be on your tickets. There are places on the web where you can decode the line items.

teacherCanada

Seamus - thanks for the link to the ita. That site does show our flights, but I can't see how to determine the departure taxes and fees. It says I cannot book on the ita site (which is fine, since our flights are already booked). I will try to search on our actual airline websites to see if dep taxes are mentioned there. Thanks again.

tC

rkkwan

That cannot be all taxes and fees. A big chunk is absolutely certainly YQ surcharge, which is what airlines call fuel surcharge. To put it simply, it's part of the fare; totally up to the airline to state what it is, and is not collected by government or airport agencies.

J62

You don't need to decipher the different taxes and fees. As rk stated it's all part of the total fare which you pay to the airline.

janisj

What do you really want to know -- do you think someone is cheating you and padding the taxes/extra fees? Not very likely - taxes, departure fees, and fuel surcharges can sometimes even exceed the base airfare.

rkkwan

Yeah, all it matters is the final, total cost.

teacherCanada

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and contributions. We were told the estimated departure taxes and fees would be around $400 per person (which we budgeted for). They came in at $451.25. I don't have too much of a squabble about it, but it started me wondering how I could ascertain if we were being charged the correct amount. Really, could the travel agents make up an amount and state that was the fee? I wondered if there was any way a ticket purchaser could check the amount.

I do believe the $451.25 includes any fuel surcharges - but how can a consumer find out those amounts? ... or do we just trust the agents to work in our best interests?

The total amount of the increase (48 pax x $51.25) is just shy of $2500 and that set us back a bit.

NoFlyZone - if the amounts are on our tickets, would I be able to "decode" them? I am not sure if we are using electronic tickets or not.

Thank you all for trying to make sense of this for me.

tC

rkkwan

Your travel agent should tell you what the total cost should be from the start. But no, they won't be making it up.

Anyways, it's still only $51.25 per person, which is not much compared to the cost of the trip. It doesn't matter it's one person or 48, really.

mztery

I don't iunderstand why you don't just ask the travel agent for an itemized ticket receipt. When I buy tickets the breakdown is very clear about taxes, fees, etc and I'm not a travel agent.

J62

You should be caring about the total ticket price, not the taxes and fees. You can research the price of tickets using an online booking tool such as kayak.com.

The variation in total ticket price between one airline or one route and another, or even day of the week can be much bigger than the $51.25 per person your seem concerned about.

DonTopaz

The really hidden number here are the so-called "fees," which is a euphemism for fuel surcharges. Of all the various misdeeds by airlines, this one is just about the worst.

For some reason, airlines are allowed to increase the price of their ticket by adding a "fuel surcharge," which is inexplicably not included in the advertised price of the fare. Sort of like buying a car, then being charged extra for the steering wheel. Then, they're allowed to lump this into something they call "taxes and fees," leaving a lot of customers with the impression that these are all government-imposed extra costs (which the fuel surcharges are not).

To make matters more confusing, individual airlines charge different amounts for the fuel surcharge. British Airways and Lufthansa are among the worst for fuel surcharges; U.S. airlines generally don't seem to be as bad. On most tickets, in the small print, the fuel surcharges are often listed as "YQ" charges.

Every person in every country in the entire world should get on their telephone -- Now! -- and call their individual Head of Government, speak to him or her personally, and insist that fuel surcharges be listed as part of the price of the ticket, not some sort of mysterious add-on.

rkkwan

Fuel surcharge matters more in parts of the world where airfares are often fixed (or fixed within a range) by local laws and regulations. The airline will apply to said authority to adjust the YQ/fuel surcharge to adjust fares, when fuel cost changes.

It means zilch for US markets as airfare is not regulated and airlines can charge whatever they can and change it 200 times a day.

But that's not relevant anyways to the OP.

Gardyloo

Recreate your flights on ITA (use the multi-city tab and use real dates) then when you see the fare, click on the "view itinerary and fare details" link and it will display the various taxes and fees, including fuel surcharges - usually YQ or YR - that go to make up the total. If it doesn't jibe with what the TA is telling you, phone and ask them for the fare construction on the ticket.

teacherCanada

mztery - someone once told me a smart lawyer never asks a question they don't know the answer to ... I am just trying to see if I can easily figure out whether our total for departure fees/taxes/surcharges is correct. I certainly don't mind paying the fee.

rkkwan - the travel agent has (up to a few days ago) always told us the estimated fees were about $400. Now they are more. You are right. It is not much compared to the cost of the trip, but in total it is $2500 that isn't in my students' pockets.

J62 - we never get the cost of the ticket because we pay a package price for the time we are away. I have been told that group travel can sometimes access ticket rates that are sometimes not available to the public, especially if they are limited in number and are purchased as soon as they are available.

rizzuto - it seems there is a convoluted formula for determining these fees. I was just concerned that I could find out the fees our agent was being charged and see if that total was the same as the one we were paying. It very likely is the same - but I became interested in the whole process.

Gardyloo - I will try to do as you suggest. We have our actual flight schedule with flight numbers, so I think this is quite possible. Does it matter the cost of the ticket? is the fee a set amount or a percentage of another number? I do find this quite interesting and challenging to figure out.

I don't think our agent is doing anything nefarious, but I like to have a handle on where our payments end up.

Thank you everyone for your great answers and leads.

tC

rkkwan

Next time, tell the TA to overestimate the taxes and fees. That way, they can tell you about $500, and you'll all be happy with the extra 250,000 pennies!

mztery

I still quibble with your assumption the TA is overcharging. If you are on a bulk fare, ITA isn't going to be much help as they only show PUBLISHED fares.

mztery

PS if you are concerned the TA is overcharging you why wouldn't you get a breakdown before you booked the tickets? it's not actually gobbledygook - it's quite easy to read the breakdown if you have one in front of you.

When I priced out this ITN (not knowing exact flights etc) I got a total of taxes and fees, fuel surcharges etc of $490

teacherCanada

rkkwan and mztery - thanks again for responding. rkkwan - I'm only trying to ascertain the appropriate amount for the departure fees. My purpose of this thread was to see whether a plebeian like myself could find out totals from a different source than our TA. The idea about overestimating is interesting. I would prefer to get an estimate that is as accurate as possible - giving us fewer surprises close to departure.

mztery - I don't know if we are being overcharged. I really don't think so - but for my own enlightenment I wondered if there was a simple way I could find out.

If I can find an easy, straightforward manner to determine these fees I will post it here. (I kind of doubt it is possible because if there was, those more knowledgeable and familiar with the topic would have already done so.)

tC