An increasingly familiar, annoying, and expensive pattern is taking hold in award travel – especially if you want to fly up front in a lie-flat seat.
If you want to book flights that you wouldn't otherwise be able to afford (which is, like, our whole thing here at Thrifty Traveler), redeeming points and miles is the key. But no matter where you're going or in what cabin, you'll always have to throw in some cash. It starts as low as $5.60 for a one-way in the U.S. or even overseas … but it feels like the upper end just keeps rising.
Airlines that previously charged just a few bucks in surcharges are now levying $100-plus in taxes and fees on award tickets. Some previously reasonable costs – like $200-ish for a business class seat to London or Paris – have more than doubled in price. And coming back to the U.S. from Europe, it can get even nastier!
Of course, there are still ways to get around it and pay next to nothing in taxes and fees – more on that later. But the trend is clear … and needs to be called out.
The London Offenders: BA & Virgin
The longest-running leader of the high taxes and fees parade has been British Airways.
For a roundtrip business class ticket from Chicago-O'Hare (ORD) to London-Heathrow (LHR) in the off-season month of January, you are looking at paying 80,000 British Airways Avios each way … plus at least $375 in taxes and fees each way. You can use fewer Avios … but pay far more taxes and fees instead.
If you think $750 is crazy high, I'd agree. But these rates are actually significantly lower than they were just a few years ago thanks to that option to fork over more miles in order to cover the surcharges! And they're much, much better than if you book the same flights with American Airlines where one-way rates could be close to $750.
Another airline that needs to be called out for their high taxes and fees is Virgin Atlantic, where surcharges have yo-yoed over the years. After slashing the previous $1,000 one-way surcharge (and award rates, too!) last fall, Virgin went the opposite way last month: The airline just doubled the taxes and fees you'll pay on a business class award ticket.
Virgin now tacks on a flat $586 in taxes and fees on all its business class awards from the U.S. to England, up from the prior charge of just $250 or so. Surcharges also doubled on Premium Economy redemptions and increased slightly for economy, too.
Read next: A Virgin Atlantic Upper Class Review
So while you might be lured in by that 29,000-point rate, is it still worth it if you're paying more than $1,000 roundtrip to fly up front? It might be … but it's certainly a bit soul-crushing that it was half that price just a few weeks ago.
The Slow-But-Steady Offender: Air France/KLM Flying Blue
You might think this is a U.K. problem – the taxes that get automatically added for flying out of London are certainly a big part of the pain. But that has spread far beyond the British capital.
Air France/KLM's Flying Blue award program comes with some outstanding redemptions, especially up front in business class. And while many travelers have steered clear of using Flying Blue to book economy flights due to inordinately high surcharges, the cash cost for a business class ticket – while still steep – was more palatable.
But they keep inching up, up, and up … until it's gotten to this point.
While 120,000 miles roundtrip for an Air France business class flight to Frankfurt (FRA) from Detroit (DTW) is a sweet deal, $709 … is not fun. A one-way ticket can easily cost you close to $300 – up from under $200 just over a year ago.
That puts Flying Blue nearly on par with the “London Offenders” above, meaning almost nobody in Western Europe is safe anymore. While Flying Blue is not as bad as Virgin, it's now on par with British Airways. A troubling development, indeed…
The Middle Eastern Offenders: Etihad and Emirates
For some of the most expensive airplane seats on earth – Etihad's First Class Apartments and Emirates First Class – you can expect slightly higher surcharges. That's no surprise.
For Etihad, the spacious First Class Apartment is rarely bookable with points and miles – and when it is, Etihad wants a sizable 200,000 miles each way for the seat! It's only then do they tack on about $600 in taxes and fees each way, too. A little steep, don't you think?
However, if you book the same flights through American Airlines, you can save big: the same seat is bookable for 115,000 miles each way and taxes and fees for just $57!
You might not be surprised to hear that Emirates also charges super high taxes and fees on its first class seats – like $835 each way high…
Read next: Emirates First Class Review
While that's a drop in the bucket compared to the $10,000 Emirates wants to fly you to Dubai (DXB) in one of these suites, it's not fun to fork over that much cash in addition to upwards of 150,000 to 171,000 miles each way when you book with Emirates partner Qantas.
It gets worse. Emirates' fun routes to Europe – like from New York City (JFK) to Milan (MXP) and Newark (EWR) to Athens (ATH) – have largely escaped this nastiness. No more: The airline hiked surcharges on those routes whether you book economy or business class using Emirates miles. A roundtrip business class redemption that previously cost just $250 in taxes and fees now clocks in north of $900.
Brutal. Fees on Emirates' funky flight from Miami (MIA) to Bogota (BOG) also more than doubled.
So yeah, the Middle Eastern carriers are going to charge you higher taxes and fees to fly the fanciest products. But if you're in the market for a $10,000 airplane seat anyway, it might not sting quite so much.
The Economy Offenders: Icelandair & Aer Lingus
Travelers who just want an economy seat can get bitten by fees, too.
One of the most annoying culprits is booking Icelandair economy seats, which you can do using miles from either Alaska or JetBlue. With Reykjavik's (KEF) quick connections and sprawling map throughout northern Europe, it's an attractive option … until you look at the cash cost.
This search from Boston (BOS), through Reykjavik, to Helsinki (HEL) is a great example: 45,000 points roundtrip is a solid, roundtrip redemption … but with $409 in taxes and fees tacked on, it's all of a sudden looking just as expensive as just buying the flight with cash.
Speaking of…
Same days. Same flights. Same airline. Same economy seats. All for $366 roundtrip and zero points and miles, versus what Alaska and JetBlue want to charge you: 40,000-plus miles and more than the cost of the cash ticket in surcharges! Ridiculous!
This same issue pops up when booking Aer Lingus economy flights with British Airways Avios, too, by the way. You might get lured in with a crazy low award rate, only to get the bill for $400-plus in taxes and fees when Aer Lingus might just sell you the same itinerary for less than that if you just pay in cash.
Always double check!
The Bright Spots: The U.S. Airlines
When traveling within the U.S., you'll (almost) always just pay $5.60 each way in taxes and fees on an award ticket. Flying in and around the U.S. is a great way to ensure you don't get fleeced in surcharges. But when flying from the U.S. abroad, the U.S. airlines usually won't charge you massive taxes and fees, either – even up front.
Here's a perfect example. In a recent American Airlines business class award alert we sent to Thrifty Traveler Premium subscribers to London bookable with both Alaska and American Airlines for as low as 55,000 miles each way.
But here's the best part:
- Using American for a one-way, it's just $5.60
- With Alaska miles, it's $19
- Thanks to government fees, a roundtrip clocked in at $410 … but that's still a fraction of what the U.K. carriers would charge.
In the flight deal, as we do in every deal, we laid out all of the ways to book, including taxes and fees.
It's not just American. We recently rounded up some 170,000-mile roundtrip fares from the U.S. to Europe flying Delta One using your Delta SkyMiles – a solid SkyMiles redemption. Better yet, even roundtrip redemptions had as low as $50 in taxes and fees thanks to Delta's reasonable approach.
And to round out the U.S. airlines, United Polaris business class to Europe for as low as 50,000 … and just $5.60.
Whether you book with partners like ANA (shown above), Avianca, Air Canada, or United itself, it's always under $50 for these one-ways to Europe.
Bottom Line
The taxes and fees are too damn high! And we're sick of it.
Surcharges on award tickets are getting more and more expensive – especially flying to and from London and in the lie-flat cabins. But even so, the U.S. airlines offer a reprieve from the nastiest rates.
I agree with all of this. I just booked a multi-city economy Boston-Tallinn-Vilnius-Boston paying $798 RT because the fees on one-way were almost $300, plus the miles. Who would use miles for that?
As I posted here once before, in the context of ever higher credit card annual fees with hard-to-use benefits and decreased lounge “access,” it seems to me that the days of points and miles are numbered for most anything but perhaps selected domestic flights. I’m relying more and more on a couple of free or low-fee cashback cards. $10,000 spent on a mileage card gets you 10,000 miles, worth arguably $100. The same amount on my 3% cashback card gives me $300, three times the benefit. And no annual fee. In my opinion, the greed of the banks and the airlines has killed the (once) golden goose.