How to avoid airline surcharges | Coffee Break Ep102 | 4-21-26

How to avoid airline surcharges | Coffee Break Ep102 | 4-21-26

From Frequent Miler on the Air by Frequent Miler

April 21, 2026 · 22 min

About this episode

This episode discusses strategies to avoid rising airline fuel surcharges.

Airline fuel surcharges are going up! We've recently seen Air France KLM Flying Blue and Virgin Atlantic increase surcharges on their awards and it's looking like a trend. In this podcast episode, we'll talk about the different ways you can avoid them. How to avoid airline surcharges (02:02) - Booking with an alliance partner that doesn't pass along surcharges (02:15) - Air France KLM Flying Blue booked with Virgin Atlantic or Japan Airline Mileage Bank miles Learn more about going to Europe starting on Air France or KLM Business Class using Virgin Atlantic points here Learn more about Air France without surcharges via Japan Airline Mileage Bank miles here (04:02) - Rove miles Learn more about using Rove miles here (07:04) - Lufthansa booked through other Star Alliance partners (07:41) - One World is tricky... (11:38) - What can you do about high taxes coming back from the UK? (12:45) - For travel to and from Europe, consider JetBlue's flights booked through Qatar Avios Learn about booking JetBlue with Qatar Avios here (16:34) - SAS (17:51) - Airlines that don't charge surcharges in the first place Visit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe to get updated on in-depth points and…

People in this episode

Host: Frequent Miler

Topics covered

  • airline surcharges
  • travel tips
  • points and miles
  • booking strategies
  • European travel

Keywords

  • airline surcharges
  • Air France
  • Virgin Atlantic
  • Japan Airline Mileage Bank
  • JetBlue
  • Qatar Avios
  • travel tips

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Air France KLM Flying Blue, Virgin Atlantic, Japan Airline Mileage Bank, Rove, Lufthansa, Star Alliance, One World, JetBlue, Qatar Avios, SAS

Books & works: Beach Walk

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