Award--YQ on SQ is more than YQ on TG

[Tiki]

I'm doing some research to help me decide the best way to go. What I want is:

BNE-(SIN or BKK)-KTM in Y
BOM-(SIN or BKK)-BNE in J

I was playing around with dummy bookings and found the TG YQ taxes to be much less than the SQ YQ taxes. TG has just announced a reduction on 24 Dec whereas SQ has raised the YQ in Dec.

The dilemma is how to book the award?

I know most people like to book 2 one ways but if you book a ticket ex India, there is a 12.9% surcharge on J class. Putting the outbound and return flights on one itinerary (paid ticket) seems to solve this problem. I don't know if this would apply to award tickets since the ticket itself is $0.00 so would appreciate any advice from people who have booked J awards ex-India.

Are the YQ surcharges accurate if I do a dummy booking on TG website, are those the same taxes SQ would use to book an award ticket? I saw in other posts where SQ tries to charge more than they expected in YQ, so I was wondering if they apply SQ's YQ charges whether you fly on them or not.

The other complication is that if I use TG, I lose the 15% online booking discount.

[Gunners]

I fly out of AMD a lot and found that Indian taxes are levied if I either updgrade or redeep a J flight on KF miles. If you go into the SIA redeption site you will note a "red circle" with the words India taxes when making redemptions out of India.

I normally book tow one ways redemptions to avoid some of the taxes. The cheapest J flights from DEL to BNE are through MH which charges around AUD $2600 return.

[Pure Shores]

YQ Award Fees?

Hi,

I have a similar taxes query and have tagged it on to this post rather than listing a new post.

I am looking at making a star alliance award booking using my SQ FFP’s. The itinerary in June 2011 is:

Auckland- Bangkok
Bangkok – Chiang Mai
Chiang Rai – Auckland

Points come up correctly per the Star Alliance Award chart used by SQ, but the taxes are really high.

I was quoted the following per person in NZD (NZD/SGD is tracking close to 1:1 at present) by SQ and compared the cost on-line against the TG website:

IA Taxes: 11.20 (TG Webiste: 11)
KK Taxes: 29.20 (TG website 28.42)
TS Taxes: 35.30 (TG Website 35.1)
YQ Taxes: 203.80 (TG Website Nil)
Total Taxes: 279.20 (TG Website 74.72)

Any idea what the YQ charge is? Are these booking fees by SQ? Do these charges change by flight? Pretty good way to make money out of your customers!