If you’ve booked enough airline tickets — whether paying cash or redeeming points — odds are that you’ve seen mention of fuel surcharges (otherwise often referred to as carrier imposed surcharges). What exactly are these surcharges, do they really matter, and are there any ways to avoid paying them? I wanted to address that in…
Continue reading: Airline Fuel Surcharges: What Are They, And Should You Care?
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@Ben Schlappig @Lucky Have you noticed that on one way Emirates awards from countries which ban/severely restricted EK still has obscene surcharges? I.e. $500 usd syd-dxb in J one way. Yet there's none on a cash ticket. If they're illegal then they're illegal right? Why would they still be charged on only awards? Again this is exclusively for countries with bans/severe restrictions in place.
After Mayor Pete finishes his DEI training, I'm sure he will look into this...
Another fun observation is when the airlines run their little promos: "this week only, use code FALL2024 to save 30% off base fares!!".
Great, I see a $500 flight and look forward to the savings. Oh wait, the base fare is $100, surcharges are $300 and taxes are $100 so I'm only saving $30 on that $500 ticket...
Please! Stop using "fuel surcharge." As you say, these carrier-imposed fees have no relationship to fuel prices, so just say "carrier-imposed fees." BA was even sued for using the former name when the fees stayed in place while fuel prices dropped to a 40-year low.
They are not fuel surcharge but carrier imposed fees hence not linked to the fuel price.
All major markets are 0% commission.
And then there is ANA who last year said they were increasing award redemption points cost but will offset by reducing fuel surcharges. They did indeed increase redemption. Instead of 85k from us to Japan it's now 117k but not one yen was dropped in taxes and surcharges. Sooo awesome.
Airlines are in the business of extracting as much money as possible from their clients.
Once you accept this simple axiom, everything else makes (sad) sense.