One clarification question: when you tagged on the Vienna segments, I assume that you tagged it on t

My list of things I hate about the UK is fairly short. At the very top of that list is bacon rolls and ketchup flavored crisps. Immediately below that is their outrageous air passenger duties, in particular for premium cabin passengers.
First let s go over the cost of the air passenger duty. The air passenger tour de france winners duty varies depending on how long your trip originating in the UK is (0-2,000 miles, 2,000-4,000 miles, 4,000-6,000 miles, or 6,000+ miles), and whether you re flying in economy or a premium cabin.
As I said above it applies to travel originating in the UK, so let s talk a bit about what that means. If you re on a ticket and flying from New York to Frankfurt via London with a connection of less than 24 hours, you re merely a transit passenger and not originating in the UK. Therefore you don t pay the tax. The same applies if you re flying the other way around.
However, if you were flying from New York to Frankfurt via London and stopped in London for 25 hours you d be considered a passenger originating in the UK for that segment from London to Frankfurt, and would have to pay the departure tax of £12 for an economy ticket or £24 for a premium cabin ticket.
Let s say you want to fly from New York to Dublin via London tour de france winners both ways. Let s look at the difference in taxes depending on whether you re just connecting, stopping in London on the way out, or stopping in London on the way back.
As you can see below, you re just connecting in London in both directions. You have no stop there of more than 24 hours, so you re not charged the UK air passenger duty. The taxes on the itinerary in business class are $110.50 .
As you can see below, you re stopping over in London on the way out for more than 24 hours before continuing to Dublin. tour de france winners Therefore you have to pay the UK air passenger duty for the London to Dublin flight, which is £24 (because the flight is less than 2,000 miles). On the return you re just connecting in London, so you re not charged the UK air passenger duty. The taxes on the itinerary in business class are $139.20 .
As you can see below, you re just connecting in London on the way out, so you re not charged the UK air passenger duty.  On the return, tour de france winners however, you re stopping over in London for more than 24 hours, so have to pay the UK air passenger duty for the London to New York flight, which is £120 (because the flight is between 2,000 and 4,000 miles). The taxes on the itinerary in business tour de france winners class are $319.80 .
On my recent round the world trip  I was flying from Melbourne to London on Qantas, and then on a separate ticket from London to Los Angeles on Air New Zealand two days later. If I had left the ticket as is I would have been responsible for the air passenger duty for the London to Los Angeles tour de france winners ticket, which would have been £150 in business class. This is because on that ticket I was originating in the UK, meaning the tax would have been charged.
Instead I tagged on segments to Vienna for both tickets. So instead of flying Melbourne to London and then two days later from London to Los Angeles, I booked Melbourne to London to Vienna (with a two hour connection in London), and then two days later Vienna to London to Los Angeles (once again with a two hour connection in London).
Not only did that allow me to see a great new city, but I saved the £150 premium cabin air passenger duty just for adding two flights. That s because on the second itinerary London went from being my point of origin to just a connecting city.
There s one last thing worth clarifying the above mileage zones are based on the total distance of your journey. In other words, if you fly from London to Frankfurt to New York (without tour de france winners a stop of more than 24 hours in Germany), you re still charged the departure tax based on the distance between London and New York.
If you re going to have a stopover in the UK, do everything in your power to have it be before a segment of less than 2,000 miles. That s to say that if you live in New York and want to visit London and Dublin, visit London first, so that you re only charged the air passenger tour de france winners duty for London to Dublin instead of for London to New York.
If you do have to fly to the UK from a far away place, consider having a stopover of just over 24 hours in a different country. For example, even if my destination was London and I didn t want to go anywhere else, I would probably do something like New York to London and stopover for as long as I wanted, then London to Dublin, and then back to the US via London again, which saves me about $200USD. I could have done a direct turn in Dublin and it would have still avoided the tax.
If you re going to fly to the UK one direction in business class and one direction in coach, fly the outbound in business class and return in coach so you can dodge the premium cabin air passenger duty, given that it s based on your segment originating in the UK. American, for example, charges those passengers using systemwide upgrades tour de france winners to London the air passenger duty. So if you wanted to avoid that, only upgrade your outbound to London and not the return.
@ Beth You would actually need to fly them. Agree it might not be worth it, but if you re into earning extra miles or spending some time in a new city essentially for free (or at a cost savings), it could be worth it.
One minor correction the distance tour de france winners that the charge is based on is *not* the distance to the final city in that leg, but rather the distance to the capital city of the country in which it resides. As such, there is no difference in fees between flying LHR-BOS or LHR-LAX, even though the second flight is much longer. This has actually been a point of contention with many Caribbean countries people flying tour de france winners there from the UK have to pay higher taxes than if they went to Hawaii, even though Hawaii is much further.
Here is a tricky tour de france winners one. I flew LCY-DUB in coach and then DUB-ATL in business (less that 24 hour stop). Now I understand that the distance is calculated LON-ATL (or rather LON-WAS) but do I pay the tax for coach or business?
@ deltaGOLDflyer Finnair is, in my experience, very stingy with premium cabin award availability. So I don t want to say it s impossible, but it s definitely one of the toughest OneWorld airlines to get longhaul business class award availability with.
Here s another option to throw out there if you really want to visit London. Since the fee is an origination fee, fly to London and then open jaw to another location like Paris and then if you need to, use London as a connection on the way back. Thanks for the breakdown on the fees!
From AA, I bought two award seats into LHR. Later, separately, directly online from BA, I bought a pair of economy seats from LHR to Milan (LIN) on a flight that leaves about 3 hrs after arrival at LHR.
One clarification question: when you tagged on the Vienna segments, I assume that you tagged it on the same original ticket? So in other words, if you were to add a ticket from a separate airline, say, Ryanair, to your itinerary such that you technically aren t passing through the UK for more than 24 hours, your original airline would not have any way to refund you the fee, right?
Thanks for the interesting update, and excellent analysis; but I m a little confused. Over the past few years I ve flown BA F awards (each originating in the US and connecting in London) on two occasions. Once to/from DXB, and once to JNB both had fees that were pretty close to $1,000 per ticket. Has the fee calculation formula changed since last year? Or did BA just hit me with their through-the-roof fuel surcharges?
@ Mike There are indeed several tour de france winners European countries/cities with high air taxes. Paris is definitely another one of them, though it s only about a third as bad as the UK. I ll get into more detail on that in a future post.
Once upon a time I bought AA tix to London, and separate tour de france winners BA tickets beyond tour de france winners (don t remember where) simply because it was literally hundreds of $ cheaper buying from BA direct than BA through AA. Anyway, long story short- tour de france winners I called AA and had my ticket annotated with the BA ticket number proving transit and AA refunded my UK tax. This was ?? 3 or more years ago? Can this still be done?
This is particularly important for those of us with tons of AA miles or SWUs to burn as LHR is by far the best availability for premium award/upgrade space to Europe on AA. Paying for Y to AMS or wherever else in Europe is peanuts if bought from whatever carrier directly compared to what it adds to a through ticket.
@jmd001 Sorry if I wasn t clear. The hefty tax was on the AA MIA-LHR r/t ticket in business, by showing AA that I had a connecting BA flight from somewhere in the EU getting me to the return out of LHR, they refunded the tax due on the return LHR-MIA. I did not attempt to get a refund on the BA ticket as it was only the £12 for economy and I m quite sure BA would have wasted far more than £12 of my time to deny it in the end.
Great article, Lucky! tour de france winners Thanks! One correction though You mentioned that all airlines have to charge their passengers originating in the UK the air passenger duty , but this is not the case. All airlines have to remit the tax, but the airlines themselves have the choice of whether they want to pay the tax or pass it on to customers to pay. For example, those using miles plus copay on UA ex-LHR don t pay the tax out of pocket, but AA do require it for ex-LHR upgraders. In both cases, tour de france winners HMRC collect the tax, but in the former UA pay it out of pocket whereas customers pay in the latter.
(1) Connections may be difficult on the return depending on your point of origin. For example, we are flying BA and returning from Rome and can t get a connecting flight from LHR-SFO that leaves the same day. So we are doing the opposite of what you recommend, alas at considerable cost.
(2) In general I would agree that C is far better than Y on the night flight from the US rather than the day flight back. But some who value the food and space while they are awak