Help! An advanced tax-related query to try to smash out before the price hike.
I am trying to change my current itinerary for 2pax:
MNL-NRT JAL J -HND-KIX JL Y // HND-HKG-PER CX J // PER-SIN QF J - SIN-KUL MH Y - KUL-NRT MH J // NRT-SEA JL J // SFO-MEL-PER QF J
To this (changes italicized)
MNL-NRT JAL J (an earlier departure but same day)- NRT-ITM JL Y // HIJ-HND JL Y - HND-HKG-PER CX J // PER-SIN QF J - SIN-NRT JL J // NRT-SEA JL J // DEN-PHX AA J - PHX-SFO AA Y - SFO-MEL-PER QF J
After my live chat assistant literally spent hours working on this for me, he told me that taxes would more than double from the current 21,490 PHP per passenger to 44,238 (AUD 597 to AUD 1230). After we discussed it back and forth - he went to the pricing team at least three times - he was unable to itemise the taxes for me per flight, and then my internet dropped out, disconnecting the live chat.
Before I try again; I need a strategy.
As far as I can figure out, paying cash for the economy flights will leave me about $600 out of pocket, so it's cheaper for me to pay cash for the tickets than an additional $1200 in taxes (protected connections aside). But these suggested new taxes just don't feel right & I want to extract max value from the ticket if I can.
The changes that could possibly impact the tax that I can think of are:
Swap a HND-KIX flight to NRT-ITM (possible different departure taxes)
Add HIJ-HND domestic Japan flight on JL attracts more charges
Swap MH SIN-KUL-NRT to a direct JL SIN-NRT - a premium departure from SIN rather than economy, but no stopover in KUL
Add AA DEN-PHX-SFO - two new departures, one in J, one in Y.
Breaking it down, based on a new dummy itinerary ex MNL (first flight as per my itinerary, second flight the one in question to check)
- Swapping the JAL flight actually removes 10 PHP per passenger from the total
- A new JAL domestic flight (HIJ-HND) adds 130PHP per passenger
- MH SIN-KUL-NRT attracts 2392 PHP compared to JL SIN-NRT 2559PHP thereby adds 167PHP per passenger
- The new AA flights add 291PHP per passenger
Thereby the new total should be around 580 PHP more per passenger, making the total 44,140 - suspiciously close to the 44,238 they've calculated for 2pax.
The only other explanation I can think of is that taxes on one of my other routes for POS PH have changed by a factor of 3 or 4, but I think this is very unlikely.
Or am I going crazy?<!?!??!?!