Holiday Travel Surcharge of $10 – Actual Airfare Rule

Many have been asking, where do holiday/peak travel surcharges show up on my airline ticket?

They show up in one of 20+ airfare rule categories called, aptly enough, Surcharges (sometimes called “Q” charges), which is bound to your ticket as part of the airfare and the contract of carriage.

Domestic U.S. / Canada surcharges are added to the base airfare and then tax is applied (7.5%), so the details of the charge are almost always “baked” into the base fare and in some rare cases as part of the taxes/fees detail.

The rule text from one of the hundreds of thousands airfares with these new charges is shown below (see if you can find the bakers dozen set of days):

(Please note that $9.30 is the base price, $10 total comes from adding on 7.5% sales tax – yes the tax-man gets a bite a the apple as well)

SURCHARGES

IF INFANT WITHOUT A SEAT PSGR UNDER 2. THERE IS NO FUEL SURCHARGE PER FARE COMPONENT.

OTHERWISE

MISCELLANEOUS/OTHER SURCHARGE OF USD 9.30 PER FARE COMPONENT WILL BE ADDED TO THE APPLICABLE FARE FROM 29NOV09 THROUGH 30NOV09.

AND – MISCELLANEOUS/OTHER SURCHARGE OF USD 9.30 PER FARE COMPONENT WILL BE ADDED TO THE APPLICABLE FARE FROM 18DEC09 THROUGH 19DEC09.

AND – MISCELLANEOUS/OTHER SURCHARGE OF USD 9.30 PER FARE COMPONENT WILL BE ADDED TO THE APPLICABLE FARE ON 23DEC09.

AND – MISCELLANEOUS/OTHER SURCHARGE OF USD 9.30 PER FARE COMPONENT WILL BE ADDED TO THE APPLICABLE FARE FROM 26DEC09 THROUGH 27DEC09.

AND – MISCELLANEOUS/OTHER SURCHARGE OF USD 9.30 PER FARE COMPONENT WILL BE ADDED TO THE APPLICABLE FARE FROM 02JAN10 THROUGH 03JAN10.

AND – MISCELLANEOUS/OTHER SURCHARGE OF USD 9.30 PER FARE COMPONENT WILL BE ADDED TO THE APPLICABLE FARE ON 14MAR10.

AND – MISCELLANEOUS/OTHER SURCHARGE OF USD 9.30 PER FARE COMPONENT WILL BE ADDED TO THE APPLICABLE FARE FROM 20MAR10 THROUGH 21MAR10.

AND – MISCELLANEOUS/OTHER SURCHARGE OF USD 9.30 PER FARE COMPONENT WILL BE ADDED TO THE APPLICABLE FARE ON 28MAR10.

AND – MISCELLANEOUS/OTHER SURCHARGE OF USD 9.30 PER FARE COMPONENT WILL BE ADDED TO THE APPLICABLE FARE ON 11APR10.

AND – MISCELLANEOUS/OTHER SURCHARGE OF USD 9.30 PER FARE COMPONENT WILL BE ADDED TO THE APPLICABLE FARE ON 28MAY10.