High BrAir "extra charges", using freq. fly miles, US-Italy rdtrip.
 

We have a lot of British Airways freq. fly miles. In planning a Boston to Milan roundtrip "economy plus" this September, the extra taxes and fees are about $700 per person for the free ticket, which is over half the straight-out purchase price. Is there are way to reduce charges?

Thanks

"<i>Is there are way to reduce charges? </i>"

Not fly BA.

Try to book a ticket on American Airlines from Boston to Milan using your BA Miles.
Make sure that the flight does not go through London.
Good luck.

BA will still hit you for fuel surcharges even if you use another airline transatlantic.

The only way to avoid BA fuel surcharges is to fly on routes other than transatlantic, and not on BA planes. There are some decent "bargains" using Avios, e.g. short-haul flights in North America, AA flights to Asia or South America, etc.

That sticker shock is frustrating, but not at all uncommon. A lot of people will say it's not worth using BA miles in Europe unless you can get business class (or better) tix out of it.

Using the BA miles on other airlines may not help, unfortunately.

I just booked award tickets going to Boston to Tokyo and back, using AA miles in one direction and BA miles in the other. Both legs were on the BOS-NRT nonstop on JAL; the fees using BA Avios were $325, and fees using AAdvantage miles were $27.50.

How many yards does a FF mile actually buy, I wonder?

Just remember things could be worse...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/ar...phased-in.html

Peter

<i>I just booked award tickets going to Boston to Tokyo and back, using AA miles in one direction and BA miles in the other. Both legs were on the BOS-NRT nonstop on JAL; the fees using BA Avios were $325, and fees using AAdvantage miles were $27.50.</i>

That's distressing to learn. Unfortunately the situation regarding BA fuel fines is evolving and not in the right direction.

I recently redeemed 9000 Avios for a one-way business class flight from London to Milan, and the fees were fairly low (mainly UK APD, another insult to the system.) The same flight would have required 20,000 AA miles, so even with a fuel surcharge (which was minimal) I'd still say it was good value. You really need to do the numbers when using Adios points.

We're using our Avios (silly name, but I digress...) in
the fall for biz class RT tickets from Boston to Rome, through London. I was shocked when I was told the price of the taxes, service charges and fees -- but unfortunately there's nothing I can do about it. :-( At least Biz class on BA is a nice way to travel!

We also used our miles for RT biz class flights on Qantas from LA to Sydney a couple of years ago. Additional charges were far less, as I remember... and the flights and service were great.

We're using Avios (or Adios--more appropriate in this case) for a fall trip to Europe but after having our affinity credit card for a few years and paying BA's high fees and recently a new annual fee, we are letting the credit card go. We found a better deal with cash back from AmEx.

My partner has a ton of BA miles which we wanted to use for 2 tickets from Europe to South Africa. Enough for business class but nothing available. The taxes on the available coach seats were more expensive than what we ended up paying for the total tickets that we bought without the miles. Spent a long time on the phone to try and at least get an upgrade to the coach Plus or whatever it is called and not possible with our tickets. We ended up using some of the miles (75,000 i think) for a 500€ value car rental.

I got a BA credit card when they offered 100000 miles for joining and the first year membeship free.
I booked 2 tickets using 90000 of my miles and did have to pay a total of $900. Both tickets are for May and June travel.
However I am flying business class from NICE to JFK
I used AMEERICAN AIR mileage from JFK to MADRID and then PARIS
and also booked another ticket economy premium round trip from NEWARK to Nice for my niece.
While the $900 was a lot compared to my AMERICAN AIR no cost mileage program, both tickets if I had paid for them would have cost me about $5000.
So I am happy about the savings and being able to fly business class and giving my niece a lovely present.

I'm flying Qantas LAX-SYD-HBA-MEL-LAX in F on the transpacific legs for $532 in taxes/fees. Actually this was booked pre-Avios (it would cost much more miles now) so the fuel fines may have gone up since then.