Itโs fairly easy to find out how many miles you need for a particular redemption ticket- just refer to the award chart. Taxes and surcharges, however, are a bit trickier to price.
You could do a dummy award booking to see the taxes and surcharges, but the KrisFlyer website is buggy, error prone and above all, slow.
Besides, there will be times when you may want to book a partner award or a routing that the KrisFlyer website canโt support (e.g. mixed cabin, or using the stopover trick).
What do you do in those cases?
Using ITA Matrix to break down taxes and surcharges
The ITA Matrix was not built with award searching in mind, but itโs still a travel hackerโs best friend as it allows you to check the applicable taxes and surcharges that will be levied on an award ticket.
The ITA Matrix is incredibly simple to use (plus, the page loads really, really fast). On the home screen, enter your departure and arrival destination and dates, just as you would on any OTA
On the next screen, youโll be shown a list of airlines to choose from. In this case weโre looking at the taxes on a Singapore airlines award ticket, so click on that.
That will cause the display below to filter out only Singapore Airlines operated flights.
Click on the S$995 button, and youโll be brought to the final screen where the cost is broken down. Everything that isnโt โFareโ is a tax or surcharge.
The figures in the red box add up to S$169.30, which exactly matches the the SQ site for a similar round trip economy award booking to SYD.
The ITA Matrix is equally useful for checking the surcharges on partner award tickets. As you know, Singapore Airlines no longer imposes fuel surcharges on either award or revenue tickets on its own metal, but will pass them on if partners charge them.
Letโs try looking for Singapore to Taipei on EVA Air. We follow the exact same process as before, but this time round weโll click on the EVA Air option instead.
And there you have it- a total of S$329.60 in taxes and surcharges. Note the presence of the S$260 YQ, which (along with YR) is shorthand for fuel surcharges (or carrier-imposed surcharges in the case of YR). These really are junk fees, but theyโre part and parcel of mileage redemptions.
Looking for the same flight on the SQ website yields a taxes and surcharges figure of S$329.60.
When will the ITA Matrix not provide the proper taxes and fees?
The ITA Matrix is certainly useful, but you should be aware that in some limited cases, the taxes on a revenue ticket may not always be the same as those on an award ticket.
Flights to and from the USA
Look at this example of Singapore to San Francisco on SQ31/32
The figures in the red box add up to $134.30. However, when I try to price an award on the SQ website, hereโs what I see:
$77.90 of taxes on an award ticket versus $134.30 for a revenue ticket. Whatโs causing the $56.40 difference?
In this particular instance, itโs because the USA applies a different set of taxes and fees to โfreeโ tickets (i.e. awards) as it does to revenue ones. Here is some remarkably boring government legislation for you to paw through concerning taxes and fees in the US:
See what it says? Award tickets do not attract Passenger Facility Fees (S$6.20 in this case). They also donโt attract the US International Arrivals/Departures Tax (S$25.10 each way, so $50.20 in this case), and thatโs where our $56.40 differential comes from.
Flights from India
Indian Goods and Services Tax will be reflected on the ITA Matrix but will not be levied on award bookings, because no cash goes towards the fare component. Therefore, your taxes will be less than what the ITA Matrix suggests.
Flights from the Philippines
The ITA Matrix will show the Philippines Travel Tax, which is imposed on Philippine nationals traveling abroad. Hereโs how the Philippines Embassy in the USA explains it:
โPhilippine Nationals are expected to pay for the Philippine Travel Tax upon departure from the Philippines. It is usually paid at the airport upon departure or; oftentimes, already included in the cost of the ticket when purchased. US Nationals and Permanent Residents (Green Card Holders) are exempt from the Philippine Travel Tax. US Permanent Residents need to secure a Travel Tax Exemption Certificate from the Philippine Tourism Authority at the Department of Tourism Building at TM Kalaw Street, Ermita Manila. The Philippine Travel Tax is PHP1,620.00 (approximately $35.00). โ
Anyway, itโs not a concern to Singaporeans, and means the actual taxes will be lower than what the ITA Matrix suggests.
Other things to note
Layovers add to cost
When your aircraft does a layover in one city before proceeding to another, that airportโs authorities add on additional fees to your ticket. For example, in the screenshot below we see that flying with SQ31 from SFO to SINโฆ
โฆresults in a routing that has fewer taxes and surcharges than flying SQ1 from SFO-HKG-SIN
Cabins matter
Donโt assume that fees will be the same for all passengers on a particular flight, regardless of cabin. In the case of the UK (Air Passenger Duty), France (Air Passenger Solidarity Tax) and Hong Kong (Hong Kong Airport Construction Fee), higher fees apply for First/Business Class passengers.
That said, if youโre comparing like-to-like, that is, a Business Class fare on the ITA matrix to a Business Class award on SQโs site, your taxes and surcharges figure should still be correct.
Qantas flights
Qantas is a strange one- back in January 2015 they folded fuel surcharges into base fares for revenue tickets, but continued to impose them on award tickets. Therefore, the quotes that ITA Matrix throws up will understate the total taxes and surcharges. This only further re-emphasizes what a money grab fuel surcharges are.
Conclusion
Many people donโt bother to question the taxes and surcharges they get quoted by agents over the phone. In most cases this isnโt a problem because those are automatically calculated. However, there are some airlines which still do this manually, creating the possibility of human error. In any case it pays to be informed and have an idea of what the taxes and fees should be before making a booking.
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Interesting โ thanks for sharing the link.
Just so Iโm clear โ for any miles reward redemption (say in this case, its for SQ), I have to pay the taxes and surcharges separately (and there is no way that miles can be used to waive them off)?
yes, you have to pay taxes and surcharges in cash
Sorry if this was answered before, are there any recommended cards (DBS Altitude, WWMC) for paying the tax and fuel surcharges for both offline phone redemption and online redemption on SQ website? Thanks.
โHowever, there are some airlines which still do this manually, creating the possibility of human error. โ
Could you give some examples of airlines that do this please? Kinda curious.
US airways used to do this for their dividend mile program. i believe some airlines like RAM still continue to do this manually