OT: Just looked up a flight to Germany

[curiousmind]

Just looked up a spur of the moment Germany round trip on travel.yahoo. LAX to Frankfurt.

Here is my checkout screen:
1 Adult: $346.60
Taxes & Fees: $581.69
Ticket total: $928.29

Your thoughts?

Ominous?

Other details:
Flight: 1 Round-Trip Ticket
Tue, Nov 8, 2011 Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Frankfurt International Airport (FRA)
Depart: 05:45am
Arrive: 01:15pm
Los Angeles, CA (LAX) to Detroit, MI (DTW)
Flight 1506 Economy Class
(on Boeing 757)

1 Stop – change planes in Detroit, MI (DTW)
Connection Time: 6 hrs 15 mins
Depart: 07:30pm
Arrive: 10:05am
Next day
Detroit, MI (DTW) to Frankfurt, Germany (FRA) Delta Air Lines
Flight 142 Economy Class
(on Boeing 767-400)

Total Travel Time: 19 hrs 20 mins
Tue, Nov 22, 2011 Frankfurt International Airport (FRA) to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
Depart: 06:55am
Arrive: 08:20am
Frankfurt, Germany (FRA) to
Amsterdam, Netherlands (AMS)
Delta Air Lines
Flight 9449 operated by KLM Cityhopper DBA KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
Economy Class (on Embraer EMB E90 Jet)

1 Stop – change planes in Amsterdam, Netherlands (AMS)
Connection Time: 1 hr 30 mins
Depart: 09:50am
Arrive: 11:50am
Amsterdam, Netherlands (AMS) to
Los Angeles, CA (LAX)
Delta Air Lines
Flight 9378 operated by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
Economy Class
(on Boeing 747 all Combi models)
Adult fare rules

Total Travel Time: 13 hrs 55 mins

[Coronita]

funny how the taxes and fees are more than the passenger ticket itself.

Pretty soon, that’s what we’ll be looking at on sales taxes…

[bubble_contagion]

This is what I paid on Saturday:

Total ticket cost: $412.00
Taxes & Fees: $564.50
Booking Fee: $7.00

——————————————————————————–

Airfare total: $983.50

SAN-LAX-MUN and back.

[svelte]

Wonder what “fees” are?

The implication they are government fees, but we’ve all seen the way we’re being pinged for luggage fees, gas price fees, etc that go directly to the airlines. Wonder what the breakdown of the taxes and fees is…

[barnaby33]

Happened to me on my trip to London last month. Taxes and fees were more than the ticket. Next time you arrive at Lindbergh, remember those exit ramps you just helped pay for.

[curiousmind]

Is it the dollar?

And how in the heck can the airline fly someone roundtrip to Germany for $346! They must get some juice on those fees?

[sdduuuude]

For all we know, it is a ten-cent tax and a 581.69 for “Having a pilot on the plane fee.”

Reminds me of a story … one day, the old company of a retired engineer calls saying they need him to fix a critical machine. He says “I’m very busy relaxing but I’ll do it for a $50,000 fee” and they agree to pay him. So, he goes to the factory, checks on the machine and uses a piece of chalk to put an “X” on the part that needs replacing. He sends an invoice for $50,000. A few days later, the accounting department calls asking him to itemize the invoice. He submits a new invoice saying:

1 white “X” – $1
Knowing where to put it – $49,999

[ocrenter]

Agree, don’t read into the “fee” vs “price” too much.

We recently purchased airline tix to Asia and we did a lot of comparison shop. Let’s say 5 airlines all have their final price at $1000. One would have tax and fee at $600 and the price at $400, another would have their price at $700 and the fees/tax at $300, and the other 3 airlines in some type of combination in between. Yet, some how, they all arrive at the final total of around $1000. It is all just ways to make you think the price is cheaper than it really is.

[hslinger]

I’d get a non-stop from San Diego to London (same dates)for $ 884.06 return on BA and then get a budget ticket on easy jet or ryanair to Frankfurt.

It wont be much more than your ticket and the nonstop across the Atlantic out of san diego can’t be beat.

[hslinger]

[quote=sdduuuude]For all we know, it is a ten-cent tax and a 581.69 for “Having a pilot on the plane fee.”[/quote]It’s not.

I regularly fly SAN to Europe and have seen the itemized costs. Airport fees and taxes have exploded post 9-11.

[ocrenter]

[quote=hslinger][quote=sdduuuude]For all we know, it is a ten-cent tax and a 581.69 for “Having a pilot on the plane fee.”[/quote]It’s not.

I regularly fly SAN to Europe and have seen the itemized costs. Airport fees and taxes have exploded post 9-11.[/quote]

if the “fee and tax” portion of the ticket truly 100% go to “fee and tax” there should not be wide disparity between airlines. are your “fee and tax” all the same across the board with the various airlines?

[curiousmind]

The total price doesn’t seen unreasonable just thought it was interesting/strange. Thanks for the tip on checking out San Diego departure just figured LA was better.

[hslinger]

[quote=ocrenter]if the “fee and tax” portion of the ticket truly 100% go to “fee and tax” there should not be wide disparity between airlines. are your “fee and tax” all the same across the board with the various airlines?[/quote]most of it is dependent on the airport you fly into.

Sure the fee’s can be manipulated some but it’s nothing like the post I quoted. Some airlines even eat the taxes sometimes depending on the demand.

[Hatfield]

I think all that’s happened is that airline tickets used to include all the taxes and fees and now that stuff is being unbundled from the base fare.

They’ve been doing this with airline tickets in Europe for awhile now. Several years ago I took an Air Berlin flight from Copenhagen to Berlin. The flight was EUR10, but with fees, fuel surcharges, taxes, etc it was actually something like EUR60.

[briansd1]

One of the reasons the taxes and fees are high is because of subsidies to small town airports.

We really need to do away with such wasteful spending and terminate those programs.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120126620

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