Questions and Answers

I have two separate awards booked, AUH-LHR as an AAdvantage award and then LHR-JFK as an Alaska award. As of right now, my connection is less than 24 hours but since I booked separate tickets, I’ve been charged the UK APD on the AS award.

My sister has 2 AAdvantage awards booked – AUH-LHR using her miles and then LHR-JFK using my miles, but are separate tickets. Her connection is also under 24 hours and therefore isn’t normally subject to the UK APD

Is there a way to get a refund of the UK APD in either situation?

Thanks!

[USER=29]@David W[/USER] I’ve always assumed that if you were on two separate tickets you were out of luck re: APD but in reading an old article that Ben did: [URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2011/08/23/understanding-the-uk-air-passenger-duty-and-how-to-minimize-it/[/URL], there is at least one commenter who was able to get his APD removed on separate tickets. I’d give it a try at least since AA should be able to see other AA tickets easily and see AS tickets through their partnership…

Thanks [USER=79]@Gaurav[/USER]! I’ll give it a go and see what happens

I’m sure from the airline’s perspective, they’ll have no way of tracking if you change your inbound flight so if for some reason you get to London early, they’ll be on the hook for your taxes because you would be there more than 24 hours.

[USER=79]@Gaurav[/USER], that might be it. I called AAdvantage last night and they said that they used to be able to do it but not any more. And that my sister’s tickets are complicated in that they are booked separately and using a mixture of mine and her miles.

I’ll call AS later but I’m not expecting much. With AS, I can still change my routing without fees but nothing works out particularly well or is a more expensive option.

Thanks!

Keep in mind that APD is not a charge levied on the passenger, but rather on the airline transporting the passenger. The airline simply chooses to pass the charge along to the passenger.

Thanks [USER=28]@Sean M.[/USER]

No luck with either AAdvantage or AS MileagePlan. Oh well. Mildly annoyed that I can’t get back the APD, but i’ll take some of the blame since I didn’t find out ahead of time and plan accordingly. Guess it means I should make the most of it and spend a night or two in London, yay!