While logically and morally never really justified, many airlines used some spikes in fuel prices some years ago to introduce fuel surcharges on award tickets. And since then, they have only known one way: up. Even if, as right now, fuel prices are on the fall, hardly anybody adjusts these co-payments, which make award travel sometimes simply not attractive anymore. And since these costs are far more opaque than the award levels themselves, there is a lot of abuse here.

As example, Qatar Airways has just silently doubled those surcharges for award travel for its Privilege Club members – before reverting the change amidst the harsh reaction by bloggers. So, there are not (yet) in the club of programs where one has to pay 1,000 USD and more for a long-haul roundtrip in Business Class – in addition to the mileage price, which is often on the rise as well.

The conclusion of this is simply that it is no longer enough to be go for low award levels; one also needs to check these surcharges. And there are still some good examples out there, such as North American programs, where these surcharges are considerably lower or even not applied at all, partially even not on their European or Asian partners, which are known for the most abusive practices in that area.