This quote from an item on the Beeb's website:

"In Britain, Air Passenger Duty (APD), which everyone flying out of a British airport must pay, will increase on 1 November 2010.
The further you fly, the more you pay - so if a family of four from Australia visited Britain or vice versa they would pay out around $537 (£340) in APD before they have even got on the plane.
And that is in economy class - travelling in business would cost them more than $1,000 (£633). "..."
"Under the rise in APD, the average family of four travelling from the UK to Orlando will pay $400 (£253) per family. That is bound to make consumers think again about travelling," said Greg Dawson of Virgin Airlines."

The key words here are "...<i>everyone flying out of a British airport must pay</i>..." so that "family...Orlando" will pay the same amount just to get back home from the UK if they live in Orlando...

This means we all have to evaluate our connections options - the Germans are about to introduce an air travel tax as of Jan. 2011, the Dutch and the Belgians have eliminated theirs, the Swiss don't have one...

Again quoting: "In August, the German government approved its own air travel levy, to be introduced on 1 January 2011. It ranges from $10 (£6) per passenger for short trips to $60 (£38) for long-haul. German airlines fear their competitors in the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland and Switzerland will mop up passengers keen to avoid the new tax."

So even if a flight with a change of planes in Holland or Belgium or Switzerland costs a bit more than one connecting through Heathrow - by the time you add it all up it might be worth picking the higher fare that has fewer taxes added.

Ditto for flying home from the UK. An open-jaw "multi-city" ticket "home>UK" then "BRU>home" or "AMS>home" suggests itself - if you do go to the UK, instead of flying home from London, the tax money you save could pay for the two-hour train trip by EuroStar to Brussels and some Belgian indulgence before taking off from BRU...

For those who think the EuroStar is beyond their budget, and the budget airlines' luggage restrictions too tight, there is always the option of a cheap coach from London to the continent for a less-taxed flight home: www.eurolines.co.uk and www.nationalexpress.com are just two to check out (their services overlap).

By coach from London to Amsterdam or Brussels (or Paris) for as little as 28GBP, and those under 25 or over 60 of age qualify for discounts, with two medium suitcases at no extra cost... Not for everybody, but worth knowing about.

The Brits might end up being sorry about adding this tax - the Dutch learned that it pays to <i>eliminate the revenue</i> the taxes brought in, because there is much more money to be made from having passengers come and spend rather than flee and avoid.

I don't have info at the moment about taxes while departing from France - anyone?

Read the entire item at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme...ck/9043892.stm

Some time ago - years actually, my travel agent allerted me to the fact it is far more expensive to fly out of LHR than any of the other European cities.
Following this good advice we flew in and out of Frankfurt, but visited the UK by taking the Eurostar - I cheaper option.

Thanks for putting this on the board for other unwary travellers!

Another smart move by the UK Government.

Probably Mr Brown and his merry men did this one?

Screwed again.

Trying to book a flight to Europe (coming from Canada) that requires a connection "somewhere" has always taken LHR out of the picture as a possible connection point - the cheapest fares never pop up because of this tax.

Most of our trips involve an open jaw, or multiple destinations, and I would love to work the UK into more of those, but I I learned a long time ago to not bother even trying to stop in LHR because of the additional expense that these airport taxes impose on any prospective trip to the UK.

I am disappointed to see Germany planning the same thing, albeit at a lesser rate. It looks like my search queries will be focusing more on Zurich and Amsterdam as connections and stopovers in the future

Quite simply, I get more bang for my travel buck elsewhere and I won't even waste my research time on an exercise that I know is not fruitful.

Whoa, what a bad idea!

What is so novel? All jurisdictions be they US states, Canadian provinces, European countries, do try to protect their inhabitants from excessive taxation by taxing visitors up the you know whats. Orlando, a wonderful tourist attraction, has very very high hotel occupancy taxes and very high taxes on car rentals. The British do it with these airline taxes....it's also nice for the airlines. You know advertise a return trip between NY and London for $300 and when all the taxes are done, you're paying more than $500! But the fare is low.

xyz123 asks "<i>What is so novel?</i>

Did you not read the post? It's long, I admit, but...

So here are the Cliff notes:

Answer 1: the steep increase in the UK tax
Answer 2: the upcoming introduction of a German tax
Answer 3: the elimination of the Dutch and the never-introduced Belgian tax

Although I usually use the airlines website to book flights, I do my research at a survey website like Orbitz that includes taxes and fees. If I were to decide to land in Amsterdam to visit, I would add in the cost of the rail fare as well. Germany has usually been the discount point of entry, especially as I am visiting it. I will just see how the

Just one more in a long list of reasons not to book flights that connect at London Heathrow.

"All jurisdictions be they US states, Canadian provinces, European countries, do try to protect their inhabitants from excessive taxation by taxing visitors up the you know whats"

Total horseshit.

Britain - unlike most of America - imposes no tourism taxes. Again, unlike America, we even refund the sales taxes visitors play on merchandise.

APD is imposed on EVERYONE flying from a British airport - the overwhelming majority of whom are British. And - rightly -the tax is imposed roughly in proportion to the amount of greenhouse gases flyers' journeys dump.

If irresponsible buffoons like Mucky think they've got some god-given right to destroy the planet, that's up to them. But our domestic morons get taxed exactly the same as irresponsible visitors.

"Taxing visitors up to the you know what" is a purely - and typically - American discourtesy to its visitors. Like fingerprinting

Yet, Flanner, I understand that if an individual flies a private jet into the UK, there is no APD. How does this help the greenhouse gas problem?

Per BBC News:

"There's always been a very strange anomaly about Air Passenger Duty when governments say it is a green tax," said Sean Tipton from the Association of British Travel Agents.

"If you own a private Learjet you don't have to pay any tax at all. Companies bringing in air freight don't have to pay tax.

"If APD was replaced with a per plane duty then that would change. Very rich people with private jets, they'd have to pay tax and so would cargo planes and we think that's a fairer way of doing this."

The Dutch had a tax on flights leaving the Netherlands. Once they realised the Dutch were all going to Germany and Belgium to fly instead they dropped the tax.

Being an island, it isn't so easy to start your flight in another country to avoid the APD, esp if you live outside of the South East.

"If irresponsible buffoons like Mucky think they've got some god-given right to destroy the planet, that's up to them. But our domestic morons get taxed exactly the same as irresponsible visitors."

Crikey, not quite sure what made me an irresponsible buffoon today? I am also not quite sure how I am destroying the planet single handed.
I filled my green recycle bag today and walked to the shops, took my own bag for the shopping and I don't have any flights booked for any time in the future. Mucky is confused, he doesn't smoke, hardly drinks pays all his taxes and is never in trouble with the law.

But I expect Flanner has had a bad nights sleep, is blaming me for it and has still not realised he is a pompous bigot and a blithering idiot.
He is in fact an insult to the many nice Englishmen I know.

Ignoring flanneruk to come back to some reality of the sane kind - here's a much needed add-on to the info given so far. This spells out, in essence, that connecting flights through a UK airport, whether connecting to a domestic UK flight or to another international flight, are not subject to the APD.

So don't let your airline overcharge you on trumped-up grounds.

Here's the original UK customs website:

http://tinyurl.com/29lydpa

Total horseshit.>

well that pretty much sums up flimflanner his/her/its self IMO.

But where has Dolly Llama been?

Hopefully one of Fodor's most astute and helpful voices has not abandoned Fodor's like so many others seem to have. This helpful post is a good example of Dolly's great contributions!

Total horseshit.

Britain - unlike most of America - imposes no tourism taxes. Again, unlike America, we even refund the sales taxes visitors play on merchandise>

How can I refund the VAT I pay at Sainsbury's, at any shop for incidentals, on every purchase I make practically - are you saying that every pence of VAT I pay in UK I can get refunded?
Please provide details as I am owed literally thousands of pounds, that have gone, presumably straight into the Exchequer or whatever the Treasury is called.

But I assume this all can be summed up in the two words you applied to someone else's similar take that appear to start this post.

Flanner should have said 'we even refund the sales taxes visitors pay on merchandise <b>that they export out of EU</b>.'

all the merchandise I export - from tins of lager to knickknacks I pick up - no I think there must, like in the EU I think, be a rather high level of expense before any VAT can be refunded - on high-ticket items. Which means relatively little of the VAT tourists pay actually gets refunded. Once again flanner is distorting reality for some weird reason that defies logic.

Shouldn't this be Big Pounds instead of Big Bucks?

Anyway, you can get a VAT refund for most goods bought in the UK as well as from other countries in Europe. Here's the instructions for the UK: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/sectors/c...visitors.htm#1

I don't buy much while traveling so have never thought the refund worth the trouble. It's my little contribution to make up for free admission to all those museums.