Fees & Taxes - How To Figure 'em

**corbeck** · 19-Jun-2012, 05:45 PM

We're planning a trip that will take us around the world (mostly because Cathay and Scandinavian ZED's are temporarily suspended for our airline). In order to do this, it's starting to look like we've developed an extensive routing matrix. While I can ask for a quote from my travel office (USAIR), it's going to be a fairly large list of city pairs, and I'm wondering whether there is a way to grab the information off of the various airline websites as they provide a broken down listing of taxes/fees for each flight that is sold to "real passengers".

Can anyone tell me which specific fees/taxes are always added to ZED fares, and which are never added to a ZED ticket? Years ago, I wouldn't have worried about it too much as these fees and taxes were usually always trivial. That is no longer true, as anyone who has flown out of LHR can attest. On many occasions, the fees and taxes can be multiples of the actual ZED fare. Is there an automated method of determining these numbers without approaching the Travel Office? I truly don't like bothering them if there is some way for me to come up with the numbers on my own.

**Tony757** · 21-Jun-2012, 12:25 AM

Not to my knowledge. Any time I've ever needed quotes, our travel reps have been glad to help. After all, it IS their job....

**corbeck** · 22-Jun-2012, 02:04 AM

Originally Posted by Tony757

Not to my knowledge. Any time I've ever needed quotes, our travel reps have been glad to help. After all, it IS their job....

Well, I'll stipulate that you're correct. However, in my career of working the "pointy end", I learned two very important lessons.

1) Always open the yogurt in your crew meal, AWAY from you.

2) Revert to servile mode when outside of the aircraft.

I imagine that the folks in the Travel Office don't mind my never-ending enquiries at all. I just hate imposing upon them. There was always that rare groundling that would get royally pi$$ed off at me, and then I'd have to go have lunch with the Chief Pilot, or the appropriate VP. Once we were at the table, I invariably got by on my good looks and winning ways. Still, there were always more pleasant ways to spend my ground time IMHO. I just hate to take the chance on becoming a pest.

The folks in the Pass Bureau are quite patient with me, and provide yeoman service when I request it. But even in retirement, I try to remain invisible.

**Migflanker** · 22-Jun-2012, 10:26 AM

Corbeck, try dropping a line to aazed (our ZED correspondent), hopefully she’ll be able to answer your questions.
http://nonrev.net/general-discussion...ed-travel.html

**spongebue** · 22-Jun-2012, 10:58 PM

Corbeck, I recently started a desk job with UA, and my group has been working on a system that has made me quite familiar with the ZED pricing process. While UA agreements aren't necessarily going to be the same as US's, the fact that they are both on Star Alliance means that they will probably be pretty similar. I can't check for all airlines, but if you'd like to you can PM me a stack of routes and airlines and I'll do what I can do to find their prices. Each one only takes a minute or so. If nothing else, it should tell you which airports have shockingly high departure taxes, and which ones are reduced if you're flying through an airport (some taxes are waived if you go through a city as a connection).

**aazed** · 26-Jun-2012, 03:01 PM

Originally Posted by Migflanker

Corbeck, try dropping a line to aazed (our ZED correspondent), hopefully she’ll be able to answer your questions.
http://nonrev.net/general-discussion...ed-travel.html

I haven't responded to this query because there is no clear answer. The best I can say is "it depends".

Tax rules are dynamic and, in many cases, left to interpretation. For example, while a tax might exempt ID90 it doesn't necessarily exempt ZED. ID90 and ZED are not the same and yet they are, so does the exemption apply? Taxes are written generally as they apply to commercial travel, so while a tax might not apply if the commercial passenger is making an immediate connection (i.e., as required by the fare purchased), an airline employee on a standby ticket isn't traveling under the same conditions (i.e., a ZED fare doesn't require immediate connection vs. stopover) so the "transit exempt" tax may or may not apply, and if it does, and the ticketing airline doesn't collect it, it may still have to pay it when the transporting airline bills it. See, clear as mud.

There is no chart or summary that says definitively which taxes do and don't apply. Again, the only answer to the question is "it depends."

Sorry.

**zedman** · 28-Jun-2012, 05:13 PM

The "interline fare calculator" from my id90.com will give you all the details (however they can be a little off sometimes). It is the best option.
As a rule of thumbs there is no fuel surcharge (YQ or YR) on a zed ticket which is a huge savings.
When you have a connection which is less than 24h hours and show your boarding pass you can have some taxes exemption but ONLY if you connect your airline and show the boarding pass.
A zed ticket cannot be issued with some taxes overridden.

**aazed** · 06-Jul-2012, 12:35 PM

Originally Posted by zedman

The "interline fare calculator" from my id90.com will give you all the details (however they can be a little off sometimes). It is the best option.

Not all airlines have access to the ID90 fare calculator, the airline must have an agreement with ID90 to use the site. The fare and eligibility information shown on the ID90 site is based on the bilateral agreement between the employing airline (the one with a contract to use ID90) and the transporting airline. It's of limited value for an employee of XX to sign onto the site as an employee of YY.

**chepos** · 06-Jul-2012, 12:54 PM

This is true since the ZED agreemnet on SK has been suspended here at US.

Regards,

Chepos

**zedman** · 07-Jul-2012, 01:23 PM

SK suspended their agreements with a lot of airlines because they do not accept paper tickets anymore and want the Zed tickets to be electronics...

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