BA Avios ‘taxes and charges’ creeping up and miscalculated

Whilst the oil price has been relatively steady since Autumn 2015, oscillating around the $50 mark for Brent Crude, that hasn’t stopped British Airways quietly sneaking up its ‘taxes and charges’.

On Wednesday we ran an article showing you the peak and off-peak Avios redemption dates for 2018.

As part of that article we did an example of a British Airways Club World redemption to New York, with a ‘taxes and charges’ figure of £529.

In April 2017, we ran a very similar article with the peak / off-peak calendar for 2017.  Last April, the taxes for the identical flight were £480.  

This represents an increase of £49, so £98 for a couple using a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher.

If we look at Iberia, the taxes and charges for Madrid to JFK went up by just £14, from £145 to £159 return in Business Class.  This means that the difference cannot be down to increased US airport and security fees.  

Part of the difference will be increased Heathrow passenger service charges, and £4 is down to increased Air Passenger Duty, but in general it does give the impression of BA arbitrarily increasing its ‘surcharges’ for no good reason.

ba.com is still incorrectly showing taxes and charges

To make matters worse, on some routes ba.com has trouble accurately calculating the taxes and charges due.  It always corrects itself by the time you get to the payment page but you should never treat the figure shown on the flight selection page as correct.

Here is a Club World redemption from London to Tokyo.  The flight selection page shows taxes of £637:

….. but the payment page shows – correctly, if you compare with the charges on a cash ticket – that the total should be £539:

If you search for Edinburgh to Tokyo via London the error is even more stark.  The flight selection page shows taxes of £740 per person:

…. instead of £539.

No-one is being overcharged here, but British Airways isn’t doing itself any favours by giving the impression that taxes and charges are (even) higher than they actually are.

PS.  Visitors to our office will recognise the image above, because we have it – an original from the 1950’s – on the wall!  Similar are available from Antikbar on Kings Road.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (September 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards. Both have increased sign-up bonuses until 2nd November 2021:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

The 30,000 points bonus on Amex Gold runs to 9th November 2021. The 60,000 points bonus on The Platinum Card runs to 2nd November 2021.

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card:

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies. This card has a limited time offer of 60,000 Avios when you sign up:

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

(Want to earn more Avios?  Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)