American to Remove Cheapest Fares From GDS

[MELso]

So how does a mere mortal make a tax free booking on AA domestic that doesn't contain an international flight?

Any AU TA?

I think I have worked out what the problem is here. @madrooster seems to think that people would interpret 'booking direct' to mean 'booking an international flight and domestic flight together' rather than 'booking direct with the airline' (which is what I interpreted to mean, particularly in the context of a thread about TAs being canned by AA).

 

[serfty]

So how does a mere mortal make a tax free booking on AA domestic that doesn't contain an international flight?

Any AU TA?

Some AU TA's are competent enough to do this.

I have indeed booked and traveled to, from and within the USA using such.

 

[Lynda2475]

And to do this tax evasion going forward you will have to book via a TA who uses a system which leverages NDC not GDS, otherwise you wont get a best price anyway.

Unless there is some magic code you need to specify when you call up AA and ask to pay in USD on your Aussie credit card, where they can adjust the quote before they charge you.

 

[MELso]

Some AU TA's are competent enough to do this.

I have indeed booked and traveled to, from and within the USA using such.

Were the tickets within the US standalone tickets, or tickets purchased as part of a broader international itinerary (or tacked on to it)?

 

[justinbrett]

Some AU TA's ...

And I'm guessing unless you're booking the international flights through them, they'll charge commission/fees that will obliterate any tax saving

 

[serfty]

And I'm guessing unless you're booking the international flights through them, they'll charge commission/fees that will obliterate any tax saving

No ... generally self booked award flights.

Then tax reduced US tickets issued by TA in conjuction with those.

 

[Lynda2475]

But once AA remove the best priced flights form GDS unless they move to NDC, they wont be able to book them for you and earn the commission they have been to date.

If they are only offered the more expensive flights you'd be better to eat the 7.5% and still pay less over all.

 

[MELso]

No ... generally self booked award flights.

Then tax reduced US tickets issued by TA in conjuction with those.

And that's why no US domestic excise taxes apply - you're booking international and domestic travel together. But standalone fares will attract excise.

 

[madrooster]

So how does a mere mortal make a tax free booking on AA domestic that doesn't contain an international flight?

Any AU TA?

Any competent TA. It doesn't have to be an Australian one.

I'd love to know how to avoid paying it when I can only get an award ticket as far as SFO at a peak travel time from a partner airline of the operating carrier, but need to get to FLL using a different airline to make a particular connection, and don't want to pay a travel agent at least as much as the tax to book the ticket, all the while risking the award availability disappearing...

It's not always about what you know, but also who you know. If you have a good relationship with an agent that knows what they're doing, and is also well connected, they can do wonders eg. ask an airline to open up award seats on flights that you don't see any award space on, where loads / circumstances / scenario permits.

And I'm guessing unless you're booking the international flights through them, they'll charge commission/fees that will obliterate any tax saving

It depends on what you're doing travel wise.

If you're doing mostly award travel, then maybe that might be the case. But that fee might well be worth your while if they ticket your award and commercial fare in the same PNR so that you can be seamlessly through-checked etc. Perhaps they can override seating fees for extra legroom seats, and so forth.

It's not always about the raw dollars on paper...

And that's why no US domestic excise taxes apply - you're booking international and domestic travel together. But standalone fares will attract excise.

The example I gave further up this thread is an example of a standalone fare. It was a ONT-LGA domestic fare. You can have a scenario such as:

SYD QF LAX as an award
LAX AA DFW as a commercial fare with the 7.5% and segment tax exempted

 

[JessicaTam]

[mod hat]
Enough of the avoiding excise discussion and back to the thread topic thanks.
[/mod hat]