Confirmed: No new fuel surcharges on AAdvantage Awards

Wow, just finished a late vacation breakfast and got back online and read all the chatter about AAdvantage Award fuel surcharges. The big news ALWAYS happens when I’m on vacation!

The AAdvantage Award fuel surcharges turn out to have been a mistake. Here’s the official statement:

Last night, in a routine effort to better align American to industry standards with other global carriers, American began collecting carrier-imposed surcharges on tickets for travel on other carriers’ metal.

This change was intended for revenue tickets only, but the surcharge was erroneously added to AAdvantage award redemptions on other airlines as well.

Except in the cases of British Airways and Iberia, where American currently collects these surcharges, no carrier-imposed surcharges will be applied when redeeming AAdvantage miles for award travel on other carriers. Any customers who encountered this fee in error will be fully refunded. We apologize for the inconvenience.

American has a good track record of announcing program changes well in advance, so the whole fuel surcharge rumor didn’t ‘feel’ right. Glad to see that it turns out to have been a mistake.

Whew….the internet can let out a sigh of relief!