Refund of UK APD (Air Passenger Duty) for in transit travel?

This last weekend my family and I got weight restricted coming out of FCO in our attempt to get to PHL.
So we found that our best chance back to PHL was to take the next day's flight from LHR,
So we traveled to LHR (London) from FCO (Rome) on Alitalia.
We arrived in London about 6pm on Friday and spent the night and
left London about Noon on Saturday. We are not in the country more than 20 hours, but we
ended up paying the APD tax which is quite hefty.

Can somebody tell me if it is possible to get a refund of that APD tax?

We fly non rev on US Airways.

I have heard conflicting accounts that it is possible and that it is not possible.

Who should I contact?
Could the Station Manager at LHR help me sort this out?

Thanks,
Jim

If I remember correctly, most of those taxes are only refundable if you're staying on the same airline. I could be wrong, and I wish you luck, but I'm warning you ahead of time not to get your hopes up too high :-/

Not sure how the US res system is set up but we transit a lot thru LHR from BA to AA. Separate PNR reservations. When we check in with AA, we show our boarding passes from our connecting BA flight, get listed as a "thru" pax which bumps us up on the priority list above LHR originating pax thus avoiding the APD when they payroll deduct. Once the flight is completed, I don't think there is much that can be done.

What we haven't been able to figure out is when we arrive on AA and connect to BA. I guess because it involves a ZED, BA is unable (or unwilling?) to deduct the the APD. The last time we did this was when AA was still issuing paper ticket zeds so not sure if the new ezeds make any difference. At least the APD rates from LHR to mainland Europe are not as high as transatlantic. Still, it's a bit crazy that the LHR-___ flights are sometimes almost double ___-LHR flights.

For what it's worth, I would have no idea how to do that on UA's system. Doesn't mean you can't, though. Then again, UA doesn't give different priorities for connecting pax, either - the fact that AA does with other airlines is honestly very surprising.

Thanks.

Bummer, was kind of hoping somebody had experienced my issue before and found a solution to getting a refund....
I will continue to push to see if there is anything that can be done. I am out about $500 US.

Thanks,
Jim