Yesterday-Versus-Today: Carrier-Imposed Surcharges Drop 90%

Yesterday I wrote about wide open business class award space on Iberia’s new Washington Dulles – Madrid flight that launches May 1.

This flight can be booked using American AAdvantage miles, with British Airways miles, with Cathay Pacific miles, or any number of other programs (including points transferred from bank programs).

There was something strange about it, though. American Airlines was asking $600 in carrier-imposed surcharges for the flight. Normally for an Iberia flight they’d be asking $60 in these fees.

  • It turns out that Iberia was charging its members the higher fee
  • This was a mistake, it’s been corrected
  • And it’s now possible to book the award without exorbitant fees using American AAdvantage miles.

Here’s how the award is pricing now with American:

Conspiracy theories aside this turned out not to be a huge new devaluation of AAdvantage.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. If we placed a hold can we get the reduced surcharges? My hold still lost the higher price.

  2. Why would anyone use Iberia Avios if AAdvantage Miles gets you a better deal on the same Iberia flight?

  3. @Garrett. I had an award in hold. Had to call. They were able to hit refresh and the lower price was applied.

  4. @Garrett – Similar. Had award on hold with higher charges. Called AA and they manually adjusted to lower charges.

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