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UK to tax frequent flyers?
A couple of days ago the news covered a proposal to tax frequent flyers. Apparently 1% of English residents take one-fifth of overseas flights. The Committee on Climate Change advised that aviation is likely to become the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK by 2050. This is taking into account new technology to reduce greenhouse emissions. The committee wrote to Grant Shapps, the UK transport secretary setting out possible policy options for ministers to stay within the legally binding net-zero target.
According to Friends Of The Earth “aircraft cause about 3.5% of global warming from all human activities. Aircraft greenhouse emissions will continue to rise and could contribute up to 15% of global warming from all human activities within 50 years.”
I came across this website http://afreeride.org/ that is actually campaigning for the change and has more detail of the proposal. Here is what they are proposing:
- One tax free flight per year for everyone
- So this means doing away with APD and having a frequent flyer tax instead which could get progressively higher the more flights are taken.
- HMRC would need access to data that is already captured by the Home Office, on passenger movements in and out of the country. This would have to be stored in an automated database that airlines could access in real-time when selling tickets to customers.
- Airlines would need to start recording customers’ passport numbers at the point of ticket sale – instead of before boarding as is currently the case
This is quite interesting as if they did not base it on cabin class, it could, in fact, potentially benefit those travelling mainly in first and business class that flew only a few times year. I do not particularly want HMRC knowing my movements or the government holding any more information about me than they already do though! I think in order to administer this it requires a lot of invasive data going to HMRC. I can’t see the airlines being a fan of more paperwork either given the state of some of their IT!
What do you think about the proposal to introduce a frequent flyer tax? Would it make you fly less? Let us know in the comments below or on our social media.
Hotels.com Rewards nights adds fee
A couple of readers have contacted TLFL to say that they received an email from Hotels.com Rewards to announce a £4 booking fee from 27 November 2019 when you redeem a free night. However, even though this is a pretty small fee, there is a way round it. If you book on the app the fee is waived.
I personally do not collect Hotels.com rewards as many offers such as discount codes, cashback and BA e-store Avios are not available if you collect Rewards. Also, it does not work with hotel status benefits either. If you are not bothered about these then it makes sense to use Hotels.com Rewards. It is very simple to use as you simply book and stay 10 nights and you then get one night free at the price of the average of your 10 stays.
You can find more about Hotels.com Rewards nights here.
Free flight or 15% off with Malaysia Airlines
If you are travelling from the London to Australia or you could get a free Bonus Side Trip on Malaysia Airlines to Penang, Terengganu, Bangkok or Singapore. All you need to pay is the taxes. The side trip can be taken in either direction. If you wanted to have some rest and relaxation before a busy trip down under I would personally go for Langkawi. You can read our Langkawi hotel reviews here.
An example route would be:
London → Kuala Lumpur → Peninsular Malaysia/Bangkok/Singapore →
Kuala Lumpur → Australia/New Zealand → London
All the details on how to book are in this video:
You can find the web page with all the relevant details here.
6 comments
A tax structure such as this would be a jurisdictional nightmare. Would it apply to only UK citizens? What about permanent residents? Visitors on 2 year visas? What about non-residents who book flights originating and ending in the UK?
If they introduce such a tax, frequent fliers will only be encouraged to find clever ways to avoid it. Look at all of us who fly from INV to avoid APD. The majority of the flying public doesn’t do that, only frequent flyers.
I’m all for addressing CO2 emissions, but I don’t think that a proposal such as this will generate the outcome desired.
It is true that flying produces a high CO2 output. Consider, though, people who use public transport and not cars, people who don’t have children, people who don’t buy food and throw it away and people who don’t buy lots of clothes (all of which produce more CO2 than flying). The only fair system is to tax anything which produces CO2 then leave it to the consumer to choose what they spend their money on.
A (complicated, presumably expensive) tax like this would just make ex-EU flights even more attractive. As with many things environmental related, its a stupid idea that would do next to nothing to solve the problem, but at high cost.
James’ suggestion is the correct one, but it doesn’t allow politicians to meddle, so it will continue to be ignored.
If you live in London, you’d probably just end up booking a return Eurostar to Lille, then a TGVAir ticket with Air France from there. TGVAir is often same price, sometimes even cheaper than the equivalent ticket out of Paris CDG, comes with the TGV ticket to CDG, gets missed protection cover like a flight etc. It’s an hour from Lille Europe to CDG, trains pretty frequent. Just wander up to the main concourse level, to the middle to the ticket office, TGVAir is normally a dedicated counter. Show them your booking reference and IIRC passport, they hand you your TGV ticket + onward boarding pass, then off you go!
Work already now if you’re chasing skyteam status and want to avoid UK APD
Great tip Nick!
Thanks Nick, that is really useful.
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