Does AAdvantage pass on fuel surcharge to travelers for Qantas redemption?

Does AAdvantage pass on fuel surcharge to travelers for Qantas redemption? Considering to purchase some AA miles for future use.

The cash component on award redemptions appears to be lot less on AA. Perhaps do some dummy bookings on some sample routes on the AA website to satisfy yourself. You can compare the result with the QF website for the self same seat. Just one example, I looked at first class SYD-HKG and the cash component was around $100 on AA and $300 on QF one way.

The mental thing is that QF will charge you fuel surcharge for a non QF flight award even though the airline providing the service does not charge fuel surcharges - ACCC where are you?! Look at an AA flight say DFW-NRT on AA points and compare to QF points for the same redemption.

A word of caution - obivously there is some risk in your AA purchase given that their redemtpion table could be devalued, fuel surchrages could be levied (they are for BA flights on an AA redemption) at some time in the future and the AAdvantage program could change in the wake of the merger with US Airways. personally not enough to put me off, but be aware and diversify and burn points to mitigate...

.. check out the explorer award chart on AA if you haven't...lots of value there and much better vaue than the QF roudn the world offering...

..as always the value of earn/burn in this game is an individual assessment...

Thanks PLATY. Indeed outrageous that Qantas is charging us the non-existant 'fuel surcharge'.

You may have seen that BA is being taken to court in the USA on the issue of fuel surcharges on award bookings. 

I would imagine QF would have a less robust position if so challenged than BA given those surcharges on non QF flights - but that should be the provenance of the ACCC and legal types!

Australian governments (both Labor and Coalition) seem reluctant to deal with corporate non compliance (read fund the ACCC and ASIC) now with a federal coalition government I suspect there is little chance of the pollies turning on the hand that feeds the pro-corporation Murdoch approved political party.

enojet, no they don't. They only do it with BA to ensure Aadvantage members redeem on AA metal across the Atlantic rather than on BA metal. 

Do as PLATY says and test through dummy bookings. But you'll find on the whole, Aadvantage provides better value.

Cheers. I'm starting to realise the value of AAdvantage and Mileage Plus miles. Its a shame that there are limited options to earn miles for these programs in Australia. 

The main downside is the lack of credit card bonus and earn. Otherwise the trick is to get the AA Platinum (=QF Gold) which gives you 100% point earn bonus on OneWorld flights, QC access, etc.

That said, you can buy these points on AA and UA and others, so even a small saving in business or personal expenses can enable healthy point purchases.

The hardest part may be the psychological acceptance of relinquishing QF status, which we are so programmed to attain/aspire towards! And the work to get the information on the other schemes (after years of familiarity with QF)!

There's gold in them there hills if you do the digging!

Perhaps keep an eye on Alaska Airlines, Avianca as well as AA and UA, if you haven't looked into those already...