A commenter who appears to work for Copa suggests that the new program will add fuel surcharges to awards. Miguel writes,

Gary, my comments dont reflect COPA Holdings, or my superiors or companywide opinions or statements.

All tickets currently purchased from any venue are broken down with a fuel surcharge, future awards and tickets will also include a standard fuel surcharge.

On tickets issued to depart the USA will have the regular taxes and fees.
Average fuel surcharge of $160.00
Average Taces of $105.00

I will find it surprising if Copa were to add fuel surcharges to award tickets. This practice isn’t common in Central or South America. Lifemiles doesn’t do it. LAN doesn’t do it.

Miguel may or may not have knowledge of internal discussions, and I’m not suggesting at all that it isn’t possible… just that I wouldn’t expect it.

Nonetheless, since I made the projection that Copa’s new frequent flyer program wouldn’t add fuel surcharges onto award tickets, I thought it was important to share this contrary view.

And on the subject of the program’s pedigree with leadeship from the former Northwest and US Airways programs, it’s also worth noting something that I had forgotten, that Northwest (and Delta) imposed – admittedly modest – fuel surcharges on award tickets even for travel originating in the U.S. back in 2008.

---

You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!