Insult to injury. About two years ago, I wrote Virgin’s Not So Generous Frequent Flyer Program, covering how hard it was to find available mileage award seats through Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club program. Tonight, I’m struggling to understand how those “free” tickets cost $350 in fees.
I just priced a roundtrip economy ticket from Los Angeles to London: $687 for the ticket, plus $162 in additional fees, for a total of $859.
That’s a lot in fees, almost 1/4 of the core ticket price. What are the fees for? The “Fare Breakdown” link offered in association with the quote broke down nothing, simply saying: “USD 161.83 Taxes & fees.”
Poking around the site, I managed to find a FAQ page that says this:
Can you tell me more about fare taxes and charges?
You can find our policy on fares, taxes, fees and charges by viewing Article 4 of our Conditions of Carriage.
Don’t get excited. That article 4 provides no breakdown:
Applicable taxes, fees and charges imposed by government or other authority, or by the operator of an airport, shall be payable by you. When you purchase your Ticket, you will be advised of taxes, fees and charges not included in the fare, most of which will normally be shown separately on the Ticket.
To me, a breakdown is a breakdown. Who exactly is getting what amount of these fees? Looking at the US specials page, it suggests there’s a number of them:
All passengers must pay the applicable airport taxes, air passenger duties and the September 11th security charges of approximately $250.00.
The above advertised fares from Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York (JFK), Newark, Orlando, San Francisco and Washington DC include the addition of a $111, one way ($222 round trip) air carrier security and fuel surcharge.
OK, who gets what. And more important, how can those fees go up when you’re using mileage?
Same ticket, this time using 40,000 miles with Virgin for what you’d assume was a free ticket. OK, so the mileage page does have a little note saying:
*Flying Club reward flights are free in terms of fare, however applicable taxes, charges, surcharges and fees are payable and this is advised at the time of availability which can be found in the booking engine or via the contact centre when booking your flight.
Still, you wouldn’t think the fees would be that much. You certainly wouldn’t think the fees would be more than if you actually bought a ticket. But they are. That mileage ticket comes with “taxes, fees, charges & surcharges” of $347.13. That’s more than DOUBLE the fees if you just bought the ticket.
So how’s that work, Virgin? How do those fees go up so much more than if I bought a ticket? I’d really love to know.
{ 12 comments }
I´ve found very very interesting this entry! Thank u! I´d like to know too…
The fuel surcharges have been incorporated into the $687 fare. The $162 taxes are airport fees and government taxes (the UK is one of the most expensive countries to depart from). When you use miles for award tickets the fuel surcharges will always be added to the taxes. It’s a clever way of making you pay extra for a “free” flight. It’s unfair but this is what most European airlines have been doing since fuel surcharges were introduced in 2004.
I was considering business class tickets on BA from Anchorage to London via Seattle using mileage (280,000 total miles) — guess how much I would have to pay in fees, taxes and fuel surcharges?
JUST UNDER $800 PER TICKET! AND THIS IS USING MILES
WHAT A JOKE
If someone has been victimized by Virgin’s “Free ticket” program and forced to pay money to the airline that does not in turn get paid to the government (or other such agency), I think this could be worth a class action lawsuit. I am an attorney and would welcome hearing from someone IN CALIFORNIA who ended up paying for the fuel surcharge.
here is one for u . If i use Continetal miles on a virgin codeshare flight meaning i actually fly on a virgin flight but use continental miles because they share planes the fees are around $100 from washington to london, if i use Continental miles on a continetal ticket the fees are around $100 , But if i use virgin miles on a virgin plane its $350 .
So if i am on a virgin flight across the Atlantic why is Continental not charging me the extra $250
hope this makes sense
I have just been shocked at the magnitude of these fees. They toatal over $1,000 for a “free” preium economy ticket from LA to London. that’s more than paying for one economy ticket. I investigated the fees, and there was indeed a substantial “fuel surcharge” and “insurance” fee
that is not added to regular fares.
I am a CA attorney and would welcome exploring whether such practices might be cause for a class action.
I was looking for others who had their ariline miles expire without notification form the ariline. I have been unable to get VA to return my miles so I have chosen to begin using BA. Here is the mileage and fee breakdown for an upcoming flight in June 2011. If a class aciton suit comes up I’d like to be considered as 2,158 for 3 “free” seems high. I understand if a surgharge or other fee applied like others the fees seem to increase based on the ticket class.
Fees on a upcoming BA flight June 2011 –
Mileage debited: 310000
Payment Total USD: 2158.14
Contact me as
Karl, if you (or anyone) actually paid these fees and you are in California, please contact me to discuss the legal implications. I am a California attorney, and there is no cost to speak to me about this. I am looking to end this practice if possible. warren@warrenlawgroup.com, SBN248006.
I was one of those passengers who was basically cooked alive on the Virgin flight last June, when we were stuck inside the plane for hours with 108 F temps (just google: paul rubio virgin atlantic). My compensation was a re-instatement of the award miles I had used for that hellish journey.
Well it was another nightmare trying to use those miles. I finally booked a trip to India for two of us for spring 2011. Our “free” tickets cost me $808.40 in taxes and fees. If I had used my Continental miles, the taxes and fees would have been $88.40 for two of us. Virgin collected a $720.00 fuel surcharge, which doesn’t even go to Continental. WHAT A JOKE! How does Virgin get away with this? I feel helpless as a consumer in this situation. Virgin lost a class action lawsuit for charging arbitrary and bogus fuel surcharges in the mid 2000s. How are they doing it again?
Taxes/Fees
U.S. Customs User Fee $11.00
U.S. APHIS User Fee $10.00
India Passenger Service Charge $26.80
U.S. Immigration User Fee $14.00
Fuel Surcharge $720.00
India Passenger Service Fee $11.40
U.S. Security Service Fee $15.00
Certain taxes/fees list above are included in the originally quoted price.
Same issue here, traveling out of New York. Looking at using miles for return JFK-LHR. VA and AA offering roughly same “non-miles” prices: $602 and $607 respectively (incl. “taxes+fees”). VA offering same flight for 29,000 miles + $370, whereas AA offering for 40,000 miles + $160. What seems even more ludicrous is how this compares to the VA “miles+money” fare: 2,000 miles + $396. So for $26 more I can basically use close to zero miles for the same flight. This makes no sense. I tried speaking with the VA online chat help, and they said AA may be subsidizing the taxes whereas VA do not. Bollocks.
Similar here – I have saved up nearly 100,000 miles with VA which I was hoping to use to get to the UK – as with all the others above, turns out 100,000 miles isn’t worth anything near what you’d expect it to be worth. Return journey JFK to LHR in economy is 29,000 miles plus fees of $600! The standard eocnomy ticket price for the SAME FLIGHT is $540 + $220 tax. The VA fule and security surcharge is more than the price of the economy ticket…. or in otherwords, my miles are almost worthless! I feel quite honesltly robbed of the value here…. anyone want to buy 100,000 VA miles?
I can’t give away these miles. The last I checked in trying to book an upper class ticket from San Francisco to London would have accrued $1000+ in fees. Now that Continental is not partnered it seems, I have no possibility of using these miles domestically either. No other airline running similar routes have fees this high. I’ve got 172,000 miles over years of flying full fare tickets. Not much of a loyalty plan when people can’t wait to chuck their miles and never fly VA again.
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