Why Award Flights From or Through the UK are Anything But Free

[Ken1]

There is a very good article on the Points Guy website that explains that there are three main sources of added fees to award tickets that depart from or travel through the UK and gives a good explanation of each of them. He's talking about BA and AA but it's certainly relevant for those of us booking award flights through QF when travelling on BA and any other airlines departing from UK airports. It's a US based website and the amounts are shown in Pounds and in US Dollars.

Award Flights From or Through the UK are Anything But Free
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[MEL_Traveller]

There is a very good article on the Points Guy website that explains that there are three main sources of added fees to award tickets that depart from or travel through the UK and gives a good explanation of each of them. He's talking about BA and AA but it's certainly relevant for those of us booking award flights through QF when travelling on BA and any other airlines departing from UK airports. It's a US based website and the amounts are shown in Pounds and in US Dollars.

Award Flights From or Through the UK are Anything But Free
​

Government taxes and airport fees are hard to escape - but the Qantas imposed charges are the real killer.

Just did a sample FF booking and QF is adding GBP249 over and above taxes and fees for premium seats. For some reason they call them 'carrier imposed' charges, rather than 'Qantas' imposed charges. (AA does not charge the fuel fees if you redeem a QF flight through its program.)

That's a massive blow of $546 profit on the supposed 'free seat'.

It's a raw deal. We pay extra fuel surcharges to earn the points in the first place, and then pay again to redeem the ticket. Massive devaluation of the program.

Economy is slugged GBP182 in Qantas imposed charges.

 

[dajop]

This article is clearly directed at US based travellers. Something that those of us in Australia, Asia and I guess Europe in general face on most tickets. We know that award flights, to just about anywhere using our "home programs" are generally far from free (with a couple of notable exceptions). And certainly in Australia, we don't face the extortionate UK APD but we do already have a nice little fee from the government of, what $78 now, for departing.

Another thing that makes travelling to the UK "special" for some US based travellers, is that AA levies fuel fines on BA sectors, which they don't on most other carriers, even those such as QF who do have lots of fuel fines themselves.

 

[Ken1]

While it is directed at US based travellers, I found it interesting to see the amounts of the APD as I hadn't seen them listed like that before. We usually stop in London at the start of a Europe trip when using QF FF points and then fly from somewhere else in Europe and transit at LHR on the way back, to reduce the "taxes" that QF charge on Award tickets, which of course include the APD.

QF and BA seem to be the airlines that charge the highest "taxes" on award flights booked through QF FF and CX and IB the lowest. A couple of examples - a few weeks ago when looking at award availability for JFK-SYD in J with QF the "taxes" were $US433.59 and on the same day the "taxes" quoted for a CX flight JFK-HKG-SYD were only $US105.73 .

Yesterday I was looking at JFK-FCO in Y for my Son, the "taxes" charged by QF for BA flying JFK-LHR-FCO were $US298.11 and for IB JFK-MAD-FCO the "Taxes" were $US71.59 .

 

[dajop]

Wand on the same day the "taxes" quoted for a CX flight JFK-HKG-SYD were only $US105.73

That's because CX's hub is HKG, and HKG has regulated fuel surcharges. The fuel surcharges by carrier, as of Oct 2015, are listed here.