airline fees for international travel

Joan, I'm guessing the route is operated by one of AA's European partners. European carriers often treat the "fuel surcharge" as a fee, but American carriers must include it with the base price. If you are flying on one of AA's partners rather than on AA metal, the price will be higher. In particular, if you are on a BA operated flight, the taxes and fees are often quite high, not only because of the fuel surcharge, but because of taxes for flying into UK airports. If you can find a flight to Europe where the flight is entirely operated by AA, you will save some money, but since you want to go to Athens this might not be an option for you.

If you're trying to do this online, it's worth calling instead. Be clear with the agent that you want to explore all options, and to know the total price for each. If the agent you get is not as helpful or knowledgeable as you would like, hang up and try again; you'll get a different agent. I'm not a frequent flyer expert, but I do know from my reading (on forums such as this one) that the surcharges for using miles vary greatly by airline and routing, so it's worth exploring different options to see if you can do better.

Short answer: maybe (in fact, probably). But (as with so many thing in life), "it depends" on many details. But this is not the best place to get this question answered (it's the best place to get questions about European travel answered, but not the best place for info on the many critical ins and outs of successfully using frequent flyer miles). For good info, go to flyertalk and be prepared to invest a little time. All will be revealed there.

yes, it does indeed depend to a large degree on the airline that actually carries out the flight/flight segment and whether it charges a "fuel surcharge" or something similar. Air Canada is one of those that charges a hefty fee for this. I could have gotten my fees on the FF flight down by about $100-150 by choosing different connections with different airlines but that would have meant adding at least half a day of travelling time. It wasn't worth it for me.

Thanks very much for all the responses. I agree that if I could fly AA all the way, I could avoid the fees. Now I need to get creative.

With AA points, you may not be able to avoid the high fees. Here's why: The key for lower fees on points flights to Europe is to get a flight on the issuing carrier to the destination airport DIRECT from a US airport. For example, a direct AA New York to Athens flight. ANY connection within Europe will get you higher fees. So the trick would be to fly AA direct from the US to Athens. This is where you are unlucky: AA relies on its partners, i.e. Iberia (via Madrid), to provide flights to Athens - it does not fly there itself these days.

Joan - Check out the flights you can find using miles and buy a connecting ticket... We often fly SFO-LHR and then purchase a less than $100 ticket to our final destination. We've connected to Rhodes, Prague, Athens, Istanbul, Rome, Pisa, and others this way on non-stop easyJet, Turkish Air, Aegean and British Airways flights. Sometimes the high fees for connections are not just overseas - the last time we booked, it would have been over $150 more to fly through Chicago on the way back so we changed our dates to get the non-stop flight. I've also had it cheaper by adding another flight in the middle of the itinerary - don't know why - flew to Athens on Continental, then flew Athens to Paris and London back to SFO and the fees were much less than if we didn't have the Athens to Paris flight. It's just a game to figure out the least fees - as soon as you think you figure it out, it all changes...

One more thought... I have sometimes been able to get the best itinerary by having the agent look up the tickets using each flight rather than the overall itinerary. I couldn't get back to SFO on miles from Amsterdam one time until the agent looked up London to SFO, ed that flight and then looked up Amsterdam to London separately and added it together... I believe AA flies from Chicago to Manchester and Rome directly too - you could check connections or even cheap flights from either one. I also seem to have more luck with open jaw itineraries on miles tickets. On a side note, I have had 100k+ miles on American for 10+ years and in all my travels have never been able to find reasonable flight options to Europe or Hawaii that didn't make more sense to just purchase a ticket. On the other hand I have been able to figure out better miles ticket options on Virgin, Continental (before they were United), United, US Air and Delta in the past few years.

If I recall correctly, BA is really bad about pushing the fuel surcharge onto their frequent flyer customers. At $700, you're almost better off buying a regular ticket.

I am finding the same problem. I've been trying to use my AA miles and kept getting BA options to get to France, Italy and other countries in Europe. I ed the BA flight and saw that there was almost $700 taxes and fees attached to it PLUS the AA miles. Since I was trying to get to a country where AA themselves fly to, I indicated only AA (not alliance and code share airlines) in my frequent flyer flight search and started getting some options with nominal taxes on AA flights. I had to really play around with my dates also. As other have said, if your trying to fly where AA doesn't go themselves, you may run into these high additional fees.

Many of the airlines are now charging excess baggage fees. The reason for airline fees is that air travel is not a very profitable business. It's likely to get worse as airline carriers continue to struggle. Therefore, if you are planning to travel, make sure you are aware of the fees you are going to pay.

Ancient thread.