Help for the experts on award flight to London, followed by paid flight to Dublin

Hi there, hoping for some flight help from the experts. We have enough points to do to business class round trip tickets from LAX to LHR or LGW, on Virgin Atlantic ( I know they don't call it business, it's upper class or something similar)

 

Anyhow, from what I understand taxes & fees are huge on an upper class ticket to London, however, we would be flying on another airline to Dublin within hours (don't know which line yet)

Is there anyway that you know of to book the award flight without paying the London premium on award flights? If not, it seems that we would be wasting our award points & may as well just pay full price for Air New Zealand premium economy which we love. Thanks in advance

:)

The major taxes are paid when you depart from London, not when you arrive in London - so the best way of avoiding the taxes is changing your departure to a non-UK airport.

 

Are there no award flights available to DUB?

The major taxes are paid when you depart from London, not when you arrive in London - so the best way of avoiding the taxes is changing your departure to a non-UK airport.

 

Are there no award flights available to DUB?

 

Virgin does not fly to DUB, & my actual points are through Hawaiian Air, & can be used on Virgin, but not Virgin's partners :)

Anyhow, from what I understand taxes & fees are huge on an upper class ticket to London, however, we would be flying on another airline to Dublin within hours (don't know which line yet)

Is there anyway that you know of to book the award flight without paying the London premium on award flights? If not, it seems that we would be wasting our award points & may as well just pay full price for Air New Zealand premium economy which we love.

It would be good to know exactly what your understanding is, and where you got it from. As likely as not, when someone says "from what I understand" the information that they have been given is misleading or downright inaccurate.

 

As Twickenham says, there is a chunk of (true) tax that must be paid if you depart London, but the amount depends on whether you're on a long-haul or short-haul flight and whether you're in economy or a higher cabin.

 

But (without knowing the detail of how Virgin prices its award flights, and whether it's the exactly the same if you use Hawaiian points), there is a good chance that a large part of the cash element you have to pay is a surcharge levied by the airline which is unavoidable regardless of destination or direction of travel.

 

So you really need to know what the cash amount would be and how it is calculated, and whether or not any parts of it may be affected by your choice of ticket and cabin. For example, if you fly from London to Los Angeles, you will pay the same tax whether you fly in Upper Class on an award ticket or in premium economy on a cash ticket - so there would be no point in altering your choices on the basis of that tax. Yet if you base your decisions on a misunderstanding of the true position, you could be missing out on a very nice experience.

 

Similarly, you have to take a holistic view of the value of each ticket. Using cash tickets to estimate the taxes, fees and charges, it looks like a LAX-LHR-LAX round-trip in premium economy on a cash ticket would attract TFC of $646.11 today; buying a cash ticket in Upper Class would attract TFC of $1,302.11, and there is a chance that this is the same figure as would be charged on an award ticket. So what you'd need to work out is whether the additional $656.00 plus the points used is worth it to travel in Upper Class rather than premium economy. You'd need to make that judgement call, but it is too superficial to say "I can't avoid paying the Upper Class TFC so I'm not going to waste my points on getting an award ticket" - it might still be worth it for an experience which is in a different league from premium economy.

Hi there, hoping for some flight help from the experts. We have enough points to do to business class round trip tickets from LAX to LHR or LGW, on Virgin Atlantic ( I know they don't call it business, it's upper class or something similar)

 

Anyhow, from what I understand taxes & fees are huge on an upper class ticket to London, however, we would be flying on another airline to Dublin within hours (don't know which line yet)

Is there anyway that you know of to book the award flight without paying the London premium on award flights? If not, it seems that we would be wasting our award points & may as well just pay full price for Air New Zealand premium economy which we love. Thanks in advance

:)

Are you returning from Dublin as well? And when is this trip?

 

Glancing at Hawaiian's mileage chart and looking at (summer) PE fares, I think using Hawaiian miles for a summer trip is a bad exchange. Between the fees and taxes on the award ticket and the cost of the LON-DUB flight(s) I suspect the net value of your miles would be so low as to make it nonsensical. If it were me (and if I was right on the impact of the taxes and fees) I'd save them and use them domestically or on future Asia/Australia trips.

 

For August (don't know if that's a good time) I can see Premium Economy RT flights LAX-DUB via LHR on Air NZ (plus another airline like BA or Aer Lingus for the LHR-DUB flights) for around $1220 all in. That's actually cheaper than Air NZ RT to LHR alone, probably because the big UK departure tax (Air Passenger Duty) isn't charged when one is transiting the UK with less than 24h between arriving and departing, so they don't need to bury that tax in the fare. You could buy these tickets through some OTA like Expedia to avoid complications by booking through an airline itself, although Air NZ probably can do the same tickets.

 

If you're flying this summer, those prices are exceptional for LAX-UK/Ireland in PE, and I'd jump on them.

Hi & thanks for the help so far. The flights would be May 2019, Glabaliser brought up some good points, if I"m going to pay for ANZ PE, I may as well pay the $ for Upper Class & just use up my points. We used to go to Hawaii quite a bit for work, so I've got all these points sort of lying around. I think I'll just try & get the tickets, so I no longer have to worry about losing the points before they expire.

 

Regarding what my understanding regarding taxes & fees thru London, I understand there is something called the APD, & it's directly related to the cabin you fly in & whether or not you stay in London more than 6 hours, then there are also the fees charged by Virgin itself, which are really high (I realize I'm over simplifying things here) Maybe if I can't get the tickets I should just donate these points to charity & move on lol, as our preferred airlines are Air France & ANZ. We don't go on our trips often enough to accumulate award seats, just every 18 months or so... & we just pay full price, so It's a bit disappointing to use points & pay so much.

You are just spinning your wheels. You can usually book flights about 330 days out. What applies now probably will not even apply for next year...

Regarding what my understanding regarding taxes & fees thru London, I understand there is something called the APD, & it's directly related to the cabin you fly in & whether or not you stay in London more than 6 hours, then there are also the fees charged by Virgin itself, which are really high (I realize I'm over simplifying things here)

Thanks for clarifying this.

 

APD is the UK's Air Passenger Duty, which is a true tax. It is charged for any passenger starting a trip in the UK (with a handful of immaterial exceptions). "Starting a trip" includes re-starting a journey after a stopover (for example, flying Dublin to London, having a stopover, then flying London to LA), but does not include boarding a flight in the UK if simply connecting in the UK. There are rules with a few complications for when the stop in the UK is a stopover and when it is a connection, but in most cases a stopover is when it's over 24 hours.

 

APD is charged at a reduced rate for economy, and at the standard rate (double the reduced rate) for any other cabin. So it's the same amount of APD whether you fly in premium economy, business class or first class - £156.00 to LA as things currently stand.

 

Virgin will charge a cash surcharge, and that does change between cabins. The $656 difference I referred to earlier is entirely the difference between the surcharge for premium economy and the surcharge for business class. As I said, you will have to find out just what you would be charged in cash for getting an award ticket, but it is possible that the cash element is the same as for a cash ticket. Whatever your options, your decision-making will be best if it's fully informed about the total cost of each option.

 

You are just spinning your wheels. You can usually book flights about 330 days out. What applies now probably will not even apply for next year...

I could not disagree more. I'm as fed up as anyone else at the usual unthinking "Which is the best airline for ... ?" questions here. But when someone is asking intelligent questions about a specialist topic that is not often discussed, and doing so in advance in order to get their thinking and planning straight before it becomes urgent with the opening of bookings and the sudden appearance of availability, I think that is something to be encouraged and answered respectfully and helpfully. And most of the principles concerning the booking of award tickets and the calculation of taxes, fees and charges are not likely to change between now and the time that bookings open for May 2019.

I could not disagree more. I'm as fed up as anyone else at the usual unthinking "Which is the best airline for ... ?" questions here. But when someone is asking intelligent questions about a specialist topic that is not often discussed, and doing so in advance in order to get their thinking and planning straight before it becomes urgent with the opening of bookings and the sudden appearance of availability, I think that is something to be encouraged and answered respectfully and helpfully. And most of the principles concerning the booking of award tickets and the calculation of taxes, fees and charges are not likely to change between now and the time that bookings open for May 2019.

 

+1

and +1 again

and again

 

The whole area of award ticket bookings, pricings, taxes and surcharges are worthy of significant advanced study WELL in advance of actual booking of seats. Knowing how various scenarios would play out can help to determine if it is a good value to use points or cash for tickets. And understanding what kinds of surcharges and taxes one might encounter can help to alleviate the sticker shock at checkout - you think you scored a great deal relative to the number of points, but get clobbered with extra costs that negate any real value from the redemption.

 

I have never done any rememptions from HA's program, and rarely originate my TATL departures from LHR (though I do use it for delightful overnight connections) - so I can't provide much specific detail for the OP. But I will echo -- thanks for zthoughtful question posed in a forward-looking timeframe.

Globaliser & Flyer Talker thank you so much :) I have it pretty clarified in my mind, & luckily we're very flexible with our dates both pre & post cruise, so hopefully we'll be able to use up these points. :D If not, it's all good, there's lots of options we're more familiar with.

Just wanted to check in and give an update as others may find it helpful. There were zero business class tickets available on Virgin for any of the dates we were looking at.

 

Ended up booking Air New Zealand premium economy LAX to LHR, a route & seats that I am familiar & comfortable with.

 

Thanks again for everyone's help & advice. :)

 

Have a feeling my kids are going to end up with some free tickets to Hawaii :)

Just wanted to check in and give an update as others may find it helpful. There were zero business class tickets available on Virgin for any of the dates we were looking at.

 

Ended up booking Air New Zealand premium economy LAX to LHR, a route & seats that I am familiar & comfortable with.

 

Thanks again for everyone's help & advice. :)

 

Have a feeling my kids are going to end up with some free tickets to Hawaii :)

 

Air New Zealand is my top choice for LAX to LHR, you won't be disappointed.

Air New Zealand is my top choice for LAX to LHR, you won't be disappointed.

 

Mine as well, I've flown it a few times & always reserve the same seats. :)