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Family Trip to Europe with Miles Tutorial: Paying $1000 Taxes + Surcharges with Barclaycard Arrival Miles

ByThe Miles Professor

My parents and sister are planning a two week trip to Europe this summer. The vacation will be for three people and cover three different cities in Europe. As an added bonus, they decided to include a trip to Saint Martin in the Caribbean taking advantage of a “better than free” one way trick to save on American Airlines miles. Just about everything (flights, hotels, fuel surcharges) will be paid for with points. This post is part of a tutorial series to follow along step-by-step how I planned their trip!

Series Index:

My family found some very convenient flights for their trip to Europe this summer. They booked economy award tickets American Airlines miles for their flights to Rome and United Airlines miles to return from Vienna. Because they knew an excellent trick with American Airlines miles, they were able to add on a “cheaper than free” one way flight in the spring from Saint Martin onto their American Airlines award tickets from Europe. Their miles costs came out to:

  • 20,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles per person for a flight from Saint Martin in April to New York + a flight from New York to Rome in June.
  • 30,000 United Airlines miles per person for a non-stop flight from Vienna to New York in July.

They were pretty happy to be able to add a flight from Saint Martin onto their American Airlines award ticket and save 10,000 miles per person along the way. They did then need to book tickets to Saint Martin and used U.S. Bank FlexPerks and Citi ThankYou points for that.

Overall, the itinerary includes some great destinations: Saint Martin, Rome, Vienna and they can visit all these with miles. However, with miles tickets to Europe, comes a few mandatory taxes and surcharges. Most of these are transit and departure taxes that are imposed on our regular tickets, but with miles we need to pay these. Although these are small add-on expenses individually – $50 here, $80 there, $100 there – it quickly adds up with three people traveling and visiting a few destinations. My family ended up with about $1000 in taxes and surcharges for their tickets to Europe and Saint Martin. While that may sound high, keep in mind it is for three people and includes taxes from the Caribbean, within Europe and a $200 fuel surcharge we paid on one of the tickets. I give a full breakdown below. Fortunately, they were able to use miles to cover these too!

As these are travel expenses, they were able to redeem their Barclaycard Arrival miles to pay for the surcharges. My parents each have the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard, which comes with a $440 sign-up bonus that can be used as a statement credit toward any travel expense. It also earns 2 miles per dollar for every dollar spent for a value of 2.2% cash back. That’s because each mile can be redeemed for 1 cent toward any travel expense and using the miles earns a 10% rebate. My parents really like this card as the miles are so easy to use. They have been putting all their non-bonus spending on it specifically to save up for this trip. Between the two of them, they were easily able to pay for the $1000 in surcharges.

Let’s take a look at the breakdown of the taxes and fuel surcharges:

Taxes and Fuel Surcharges

Award tickets do charge some taxes and surcharges. These can be departure taxes from specific cities, transit taxes for connecting through specific cities or fuel surcharges that are charged by the airline itself.

Departure and transit taxes

  • Saint Martin departure fees and taxes: $80 per person * 3 = $240.
  • London transit taxes on the way to Rome: $52 per person * 3 = $156
  • Vienna departure taxes: $102 per person * 3 = $306

The total charges were $702.

Fuel surcharges

  • British Airways fuel surcharge for one ticket: $200.
  • British Airways fuel surcharge for three tickets London to Rome: $30 per person * 3 = $90.

On the flights from New York to Rome,  it was impossible to find three tickets on the same flight. As a result, we decided to split them up with my mother and sister taking an American Airlines flight from New York to London and my father taking a British Airways flight. The flights arrived at the same time so it was very convenient.

When using American Airlines miles, there are no fuel surcharges for flights on American Airlines. There are, however, fuel surcharges imposed by British Airways. We made that call that paying a single extra fuel surcharge of $200 on the entire trip is worth it for the convenience. After all, since it’s only one fuel surcharge, it only adds up to about $65 per person. The fuel surcharges from London to Rome really could not be avoided since only British Airways flies that route.

How We Paid the Taxes and Fuel Surcharges

For most award tickets, people will pay taxes and fuel surcharges out of pocket as there’s really no way to redeem award miles for them. However, miles earned with the Barclaycard Arrival card are unique in that they can be redeemed for any travel expense and are super flexible.

The miles can be redeemed for 1.1 cent each. That is, $1000 in taxes and surcharges costs about 90,000 Barclaycard Arrival miles and my parents received 40,000 miles each as sign-up bonuses for the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard. Redeeming the points for the fuel surcharges is super easy. You just:

  • Use the card to pay for the travel expense.
  • Go online and select to redeem miles as a statement credit.

No award hunting, no calling. Very easy to use. With their big tickets booked and $1000 in surcharges handled, my parents breathed a sigh of relief and prepared to move on to the many smaller things that need to be put in place for their trip to Europe: train tickets, tours, intra-Europe flights and hotels!

Summary

Let’s take a look at where my family is so far with their plan:

  • Find flights to Saint Martin: Two tickets for 20,000 FlexPerks points each, one ticket for 27,200 Citi ThankYou points (booked!)
  • Book a hotel in Saint Martin.
  • Find award flight from Saint Martin: Three American Airlines non-stop award tickets included with the trip to Europe (booked!)
  • Find award flight to Europe: Three American Airlines award tickets New York to Rome connecting in London (booked!)
  • Find award flights from Europe: Three United Airlines miles award tickets Vienna to New York non-stop (booked!)
  • Find flights and train tickets within Europe.
  • Book hotels in each city.

Total miles spent:

  • U.S. Bank FlexPerks: 40,000 points (two tickets to Saint Martin in April).
  • Citi Thank You Points: 27,200 points (one ticket to Saint Martin in April).
  • American Airlines miles: 20,000 * 3 = 60,000 miles (tickets from Saint Martin in April and to Rome in June).
  • United Airlines miles: 30,000*3 = 90,000 miles (tickets from Vienna in July).
  • Barclaycard Arrival miles: 90,000 miles (covered $1000 in taxes and fuel surcharges for the award tickets).

16 Comments

    1. Thanks! Fixed now. I forgot to add in the London to Rome taxes so had $900 at first. But then was trying to change to $1000 and messed it up… that’s what I get from blogging while flying!

      1. Whew! I was sure hoping it wasn’t $9000! I am new to the miles game and honestly hadn’t expected even $900 in taxes. We are hoping to take our first big trip using miles (to Europe) next year. :)

        1. $1000 sounds high, but it is for 3 people and $200 of that is a trans-Atlantic fuel surcharge on one of the tickets, which can usually be avoided. It was just very convenient for them! Another $240 is departure taxes for all 3 people from Saint Martin, which is only because they added a flight from there. That leaves about $550 for a total of $180 per ticket. You usually expect to pay $100-$200 total per ticket in transit, departure taxes and potential intra-Europe fuel surcharges.

  2. Why is to pay $1000 takes 90,000 miles? Is there anywhere explanation of how does miles to $ and miles to miles conversion works? Can you use 40,000 bonus points for 2 round trip off season tickets for Europe instead, for example?

    1. Barclaycard Arrival miles are not the same as airline miles. They are strictly fixed value points and can only be redeemed for 1 cent each toward any travel expense. You get a 10% rebate and so this makes each mile worth 1.1 cents. That’s why $1000 is 90,000 miles. Although the bonus points cannot be converted to miles, these points are super flexible in that they can be used for any travel expense: airline tickets, hotels, fuel surcharges, train tickets, etc.

      The 20,000 miles off peak to Europe is American Airlines miles. While you can use credit card bonuses for these, it requires a different credit card.

  3. I am really enjoying reading your posts! Do you have a location in your website where I could start a new thread to you? I have questions about other travel matters but don’t want to clutter your travel themes with them; it would be better to start a new thread. I have experience using frequent flyer miles for free flights – lots of those trips (Alaska, Hawaii, Italy/Switzerland, Sweden/Germany, Spain, France/Italy), so my questions aren’t elementary. At least to me they aren’t; I guess that is relative! :-) Happy travels!

    1. That’s actually a good idea! For some reason, it never occurred to me to have a place where people can ask questions. The best place to talk to me for quick responses is on Twitter @TheMilesProfess for quick responses. However, I will also add a section to ask questions.

  5. Hello Inna, I have a question that is part BarclayCard and part United/AA: My understanding is that in order to derive co-branded airline credit card benefits (free checked bags, for example) when booking award travel one must use that carrier’s co-branded card when paying taxes/fees. Is that accurate, and if so can the charge be split between the co-branded card and the Arrival card to minimize cash outlay and maximize point usage?
    On a side note – looks like you’re really thriving in the March points competition – nice work!

    1. Thanks! I really planned out to be as efficient as possible with my limited time :)

      That is a really excellent question! I actually never thought about it because I personally never check bags. However, in my parents’ case, it’s all international flights so their checked bags are free regardless. It does say that you do need to use the card to pay your taxes and fees, but I unfortunately have no firsthand experience trying to split payments.

      1. Gotcha. It was never really an issue for me either because domestically I’m usually on Southwest and international flights aren’t an issue, as you’ve noted. Just did a United award to Telluride, and ski trips usually require a checked bag due to all the ski gear. So, I ended up getting help from a super-helpful United CSR, who cancelled my existing reservation and rebooked (the day before departure!) and charged the taxes to my recently acquired Chase UA card. Sounds like a lot of hassle, but it saved $200 in baggage fees that I’d rather spend on virtually anything. Anyway, sorry to be so long winded but I’m sure one of your followers likely knows the answer to my question,,,fingers crossed.

  6. ” When using American Airlines miles, there are no fuel surcharges for flights on American Airlines.” You do pay fuel surcharges using AA miles on AA flights to London, UK. Real ripoff.

    1. You only pay fuel surcharges when you redeem British Airways miles on American Airlines flights, but American Airlines will not charge fuel surcharges on its own carrier.

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