Why did taxes on flights shoot up?

breadmonkey

I booked my RTW flights with USIT last Thursday and we put down a small deposit. I was just preparing to get a bank draft to go in and pay it off when I get a call saying that the taxes have gone up by €290/person!!! Now she told us that we would have to pay for any tax increases but how the fcuk could they have gone up by more than 50%?!

Aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

P. Breathnach

I think what you are facing is not a change in "taxes" (which, for the most part, are not taxes anyway). An amount on that scale must be a fuel surcharge. It does look questionable that a surcharge like that would have come about in less than a week. Perhaps you were not given the whole story when you booked, or you did not read all the terms and conditions carefully enough.

breadmonkey

Ah yes the surcharges, that would make more sense. We were fully aware that the surcharges/taxes could go up and we would have to pay the difference if they did but it just seems like an increase of that much is ridiculous. The girl in USIT mentioned in passing how she felt so sorry for a couple recently whose charges went up by €70! I know it's my own fault but I can't help feeling sorry for myself.

P. Breathnach

If it helps, I feel sorry for you too.

In your position I would ask how the price could vary by that much in less than a week.

breadmonkey

So what happened was that she had booked us a flight which is no longer allowed on the RTW ticket in question and part of the money is the charge to keep that flight. She said also that the actual airport taxes were higher as a result.

In fairness, she looked up several different routes for us and actually found us an option that's €300 cheaper each compared to the original price quoted. The only thing is that we would now have to get from Vancouver to New York by ourselves which tbh sounds like a bit of craic.

She also offered to give us our deposit back on the original flights if we didn't want to book anything.

So, is this the first good review ever for USIT?:p

P. Breathnach

It looks like you got a good result. Well done.