Shocking taxes now on Upper reward flights - UPDATED

This is getting ridiculous - last year taxes for Upper reward fares were around £550 at the beginning of this year they were up to £650 ish and now when checking flights for this summer the taxes are £732.22 !!

What is going on ?
.
Adult
Number of passenger 1
Fare per person 115,000 miles
Fare totals 115,000 miles
Base fare for all passengers
Number of passenger
-
Fare totals
115,000 miles
Carrier imposed surcharges
-
Fare totals £ 500.00
Taxes, fees and charges
-
Fare per person
-
Fare totals £ 232.22
Total seat purchase price
-
Total for all passengers (GBP)
115,000 miles + £732.22

David

virgin3.jpg (145.51 KiB) Viewed 26481 times

Funnily enough I was doing some funny bookings yesterday and noticed the same. Booking 2 one ways to the USA is now ridiculous.... >£1K

[mitchja]

I find miles + money fares way better value these days for me when it comes to spending miles as you still earn miles and TP’s but pay less for the revenue fare.

Yeah looks like YQ on VS flights has risen to £500!

I'm with mitchja, if you earn a lot of miles (either through flying and/or credit card), then miles + money is starting to look good at times.

E.g. LHR - LAS
£2,155 on a Z fare that earns 20,904 (33,446 as Au) miles and 200TP
I can get that down to £0 for 360,000 which represents a net spend of 330,000 ish for a Au member. So 330,000 miles is saving me £2,155 or costing £0.0065 per mile.
OR I could do £764 and 155,000 (135,000 offpeak) on a G with zero TP. So 155,000 miles is saving me £1,391 or costing £0.0090 per mile.

There is still a decent gap so a G is still significantly better value, especially since that Z fare to LAS is definitely on the low side. But factoring in the flexibility on dates and the TP earning that miles + money provides means it can be attractive.

Let’s be clear: most of it isn’t taxes at all, but surcharges imposed by the airline which are nothing more than a way of making money from reward bookings. BA does the same.

Is it fair? Arguably no, but as you (presumably) paid nothing for the miles you’re still paying significantly less than you would for a cash fare.

Let’s be clear: most of it isn’t taxes at all, but surcharges imposed by the airline which are nothing more than a way of making money from reward bookings. BA does the same.

Yup, that's why I posted the breakdown showing carrier imposed surcharge.

There's another way to look at it when the average price of a premium fare is around the £800 mark that your paying over a 100,000 miles to upgrade to Upper from a premium fare.

When the total monetary cost to purchase an Upper reward fare has increased around 35% in a couple of years, that, in my opinion, is too much.

David

It’s a hell of a lot, agreed. But VS (and BA) have got us over a barrel. Shower us with “free” miles for using our credit cards, shopping at Tesco etc etc, then hammer us with huge fees to use them.

Given that many of us are only too happy to game the system by churning credit cards or taking out life insurance policies we have no intention of keeping just to earn bonus miles, maybe this is their means of retribution.

Ultimately if you don’t like it, don’t get sucked into the air miles game and simply fly with the airline with the cheapest fares.

Ultimately if you don’t like it, don’t get sucked into the air miles game and simply fly with the airline with the cheapest fares.

Totally agree, and lets be honest it will only head one way, more devaluations and more surcharges. Spend now while there's at least some value left

What’s currently considered the best CC return? Considering you can pick up an UC fare for £1500, it does seem crazy to use 100,000 miles to save £750. Granted, you can save more and equally spend more.

I mainly spend at Tesco, Amazon & Uber. Would I be better getting regular savings from them to offset cash fares? Every time I’ve looked, those credit cards seem just as bad/good as the airlines.

What’s currently considered the best CC return? Considering you can pick up an UC fare for £1500, it does seem crazy to use 100,000 miles to save £750. Granted, you can save more and equally spend more.

https://www.headforpoints.com/best-uk-a ... dit-cards/

Robs CC resource is second to none in my mind

What’s currently considered the best CC return? Considering you can pick up an UC fare for £1500, it does seem crazy to use 100,000 miles to save £750. Granted, you can save more and equally spend more.

https://www.headforpoints.com/best-uk-a ... dit-cards/

Robs CC resource is second to none in my mind

https://www.headforpoints.com/2019/04/1 ... urcharges/

Robs picked up on this today.

Let’s be clear: most of it isn’t taxes at all, but surcharges imposed by the airline which are nothing more than a way of making money from reward bookings. BA does the same.

Is it fair? Arguably no, but as you (presumably) paid nothing for the miles you’re still paying significantly less than you would for a cash fare.

A lot of people are paying for miles. Anything you earn via credit card spend and shopping portals has a real cost. You could be using a cashback card and a cashback site, so those miles have a cost. If you purchased more via something like miles booster that’s another set of miles with a real price. I have no evidence, but guess a substantial proportion of people are in effect buying miles.

These rewards can still be great value for money especially on routes where ticket prices are higher. I’ve just used an Amex voucher on BA in first to KUL normal bucket £3886 per person. I paid 175000 miles plus £1100 plus voucher. It’s on the routes where bargain J fares can be found that their value falls for me

It’s an interesting loophole for virgin upping the taxes.... as any change in redemption values would require a notice of variation to all customers... whereas it seems taxes and surcharges can be changed at any time... it’s a bit of a big hike to swallow!

And that's a bit of an understatement...

Good news !

Wonder if there’s been a rethink.

63A2575C-3D58-47EC-8024-629843CA2184.jpeg (44.09 KiB) Viewed 25039 times

Looks like the “carrier imposed surcharge” has been reduced by £100

Hopefully it’s all been an error.

David

Wonder why the decision to reverse? I would like to think that HFP and this forum have been one of the considerations!

Wonder why the decision to reverse? I would like to think that HFP and this forum have been one of the considerations!

You are probably correct and they realised that people had noticed. Not the best PR move for them.

Ah YQ, when will you be gone or reduced to the level of a token amount to cover the 'admin' associated with using miles.

£10.. that's a nice round number that I'd happily fork over for the privilege of using my hard earned miles. I'm curious, how much would all of you be willing to pay?

Out of curiosity, I just wondered if it is the UK based passengers that Virgin are shafting with the YQ surcharge. It's not. For a one-way MCO-MAN in Upper Class in June, there is USD $533 of YQ bundled in when paying with miles.

It's a complete con. Many airlines added on fuel surcharges when oil prices went through the roof years ago. Now the oil price has dropped (albeit it's slowly rising), they cannot afford to lose this revenue - but to save face they remove the "fuel surcharge" to appease passengers, but add on a "carrier imposed surcharge" which is an amazingly similar amount.

VS (and BA) aren’t stupid. They know full well the miles game is highly addictive, and addicts will pay over the odds for their next hit. If no-one was willing to pay a high YQ surcharge for a reward flight, they wouldn’t charge it. But they clearly are, if reluctantly.

Don’t like the airlines’ game? Simple. Don’t play. There’s lots of competition out there.