Reward flight surcharges ex Brazil

[RyanB]

Hi,

I have just booked the return leg on my trip home from São Paulo and have a question regarding the charge.

When on the original search page it came up with the Avios price plus a total of £16.80 for 2 people. When going through to the payment page the amount jumped to £454.80 for 2 people. This included a carrier surcharge of £218.15 per person. I was under the impression that BA could not charge any carrier imposed surcharges from flights leaving Brazil. Is this not the case?

There was only 2 seats left on the date that I needed as the travel dates aren’t flexible so I went ahead and booked it. I’m hoping that BA have incorrectly charged me and I can get a refund of the surcharge.

Thanks in advance for any help you may have.

[NorthernLass]

£450 could be the new RFS fee on long haul bookings, not sure about the extra £4.80?! Have you read Rob’s articles from December – I think BA has got round the “problem” of not being able to charge surcharges by introducing this system.

[RyanB]

NorthernLass wrote:

£450 could be the new RFS fee on long haul bookings, not sure about the extra £4.80?! Have you read Rob’s articles from December – I think BA has got round the “problem” of not being able to charge surcharges by introducing this system.

I thought that may have been the case but all of the amounts were very random, they weren’t like the new long haul RFS. I checked returns flights from Buenos Aires as I would also be close to that airport and they do show the correct new RFS pricing, £300 being the cheapest price plus the most amount of Avios.

I was just strange because they search page was showing the low amount which I assume is correct then the payment page the higher amount.

I’m flying in to Buenos Aires on a 2-4-1 so I will get this flight added to that for a 50% refund so it’s not the end of the world, I just thought I had a bargain on my hand paying under a tenner each to come home

[Michael C]

Yes, days of the cheap Brazils have ended with the BA superspecialsecret add-on charge!

[RyanB]

Michael C wrote:

Yes, days of the cheap Brazils have ended with the BA superspecialsecret add-on charge!

They are still cheaper than the rest of the long haul pricing though so clearly aren’t aligned to the new pricing structure. It has saved me about £150 ish. I thought they had just bumped up the miles as weren’t allowed to increase the surcharge. I must be wrong though

[mzb]

Have you tried calling BA to see if they would honour the lower fees you were shown on the first screen? Pre-RFS I recall having to do that on a few occasions (I used to fly a lot out of GRU, and the same mismatch in fees between screens occurred). As others stated things may have shifted around, but may be worth a shot.

[RyanB]

mzb wrote:

Have you tried calling BA to see if they would honour the lower fees you were shown on the first screen? Pre-RFS I recall having to do that on a few occasions (I used to fly a lot out of GRU, and the same mismatch in fees between screens occurred). As others stated things may have shifted around, but may be worth a shot.

That’s a good shout, I was thinking it may be worth a shot. Good to know that it’s not a new issue and that they’ve been reasonably helpful with it in the past

[RyanB]

No luck getting them to refund any of the charges even though the call centre originally did think I was charged incorrectly. They have joined the bookings and refunded me back half of the avios though. 210,000 points plus about £1000 for 2 people return to South America still seems pretty good to me