Another Q regarding Airport taxes & Fuel surcharges for a OW 280K trip

[vetrade]

I have put together a proposed OW RTW 280K award itinerary in J (starting in MEL with stopovers in JNB, CDG, JFK, YVR and LAS) but the quote from QF for the taxes & surcharges of $1873 pp surprised me because the fees for a similar trip we did 8 months ago were only $1300 pp and this time I expected them to be around the same or lower because I minimised the QF and BA flights this time (which I understood incurred the highest fuel surcharges etc). Have spoken to QF but they only seemed capable of quoting "X" amount for a specific itinerary and I didn't have the patience to go through a range of specific scenarios / airline & flight combos one after the other to allow a comparison. Also searched the AFF archives but a ready comparison between airlines doesn't seem to exist.

I don't need a segment-by-segment analysis - just interested in establishing a basic hierarchy (if that's possible) of the taxes/fuel surcharges charged by QF, AA, BA, CX and QR (the airlines on my short list) only in relation to OW RTW awards - which ones have the highest charges and an approximate relative scale if possible. I understand AA has no surcharges for flights within USA but what is the status of AA international flights? Hopefully someone has discovered a few guidelines that are pretty straightforward to implement. Please tell me if it's worth the effort or not if you think that's the case too.

Also the QF lady told me the SYD airport taxes were high (reluctant to give me the actual figure) so I'd be better not transiting through there if possible. Can anyone tell me if that's really a significant consideration?

 

[JohnK]

That figure appears to be very high for taxes and fuel surcharges.

From memory Qantas recently increased fuel surcharges on partnered airlines to Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Not sure if South Africa is included. Trans-Tasman and the USA would remain the same.

Qantas is not able to give you a breakdown of the taxes? If you can somehow do a dummy booking then it should be possible to see a breakdown of the taxes and surcharges.

And I do not think transitting through SYD is going to add significant cost to itinerary.

 

[dajop]

Grab it while you can. Next month it will be $2300 in fuel surcharges, and a few months later $2700 no doubt. :shock:

If you start building your itinerary in the award search engine, by adding a sector at a time, you will see how much each sector adds. But it is all based on originating in Australia.

For example, using this approach, MEL-JNB is $414 in surcharges. Add in JNB-CDG and you see that surcharges for MEL-JNB /stopover / JNB-CDG come to $971 (so the JNB-CDG sectors added $557!!!!). Interestingly though JNB-CDG booked separately only added $352. So that's a $200 "buying it from Australia" fuel surcharge-surcharge as well. (Note: this may be different for you, the dates I chose only EK was available JNB-CDG, which obviously isn't oneworld but nevertheless illustrates the point). QF surcharging is anything but transparent.

 

[landl]

I am in the process of building 2 x J OW 280 trips for Christmas 2015 and have booked about two-thirds of the trip. I thought taxes/surcharges were calculated on point of departure hence avoid flying out of LHR because taxes are so high. However, when adding LYS-LHR to my booking, the Qantas consultant told me the taxes were $A220 for 2. When I put LYS-LHR in to the booking system myself, it tells me the taxes for 2 are Euro 77 (about $A110). I see Dajop refers to a "buying it from Australia" fuel surcharge. Can someone elaborate on this please? I am looking at booking LAX-BNE at some point and have just run it through the booking system. If I go CX via HKG, it tells me taxes are $US440 compared to $US872 Qantas. I realise there's a big difference in flight time but the tax would certainly be one of the factors in the decision making process. However, how can you be sure of what they will be? (This is, of course, presuming I will have much of a choice in terms of availability!)

 

[Daver6]

These taxes and surcharges are so deceptive/hidden.

Paying ~$1900 for per-syd-jnb-wdh-jnb-cpt-jnb-doh-amm-tlv-amm-doh-per

What is crazy is originally the end was doh-dxb-doh-per. Had the to dxb sectors removed and taxes went up $2!

QF were unable/unwilling to give a break down for each sector. I think the whole taxes and fuel surcharges are a complete con and is something the ACCC needs to look into. Just build it into the price of the fair or make the information transparent and readily available.

 

[nickfromeastryde]

I think if you complete a dummy booking through the OW site, then you can get a breakdown of the fees, taxes and surcharges that apply. You can't always find the exact flights however

Our OW 280K taxes were 3569.00 for 2 and we didn't worry about the taxes to much however did book in stages so I have some idea of the different charges

For 2 People our charges were:

For SYD-JBG-CPT-JBG-DOH-CDG (via QFF, AB, QR) the taxes charged were $1,819.96
For VCE-LGW-LHR-IAD (all via BA) the additional taxes were $1,390.80
For DFW-SYD (QFF) the additional taxes were only $358.24 - this is the one that surprised me as it was much less than I thought it would be

Based on above I would probably try and avoid BA and LHR in the future however in the scheme of things a few hundred dollars doesn't change the overall cost of our trip by very much

 

[Cynicor]

The other thing is that unless things have changed, the fees charged on an award through QF are higher than those for a paid flight. Calling them taxes is a misnomer, there is YQ or assorted surcharges too.

But with a QF classic/oneworld award point of departure does not affect the taxes charged for any given itinerary (apart from the obvious).