Air Canada's Aeroplan program is part of the Star Alliance universe. In addition to flights with all the Star Alliance partners, Aeroplan members can also redeem flights with: Etihad, Air Creebec, Air Serbia, Azul Brazilian Airlines, Canadian North, Eurowings, GOL, Juneyao, Olympic, and Vistara. 

The program underwent a big overhaul in November 2020. One of the key changes was that fuel surcharges have been eliminated. ×

AAdvantage does not charge fuel surcharges in most cases, be it for American Airlines flights or flights on oneworld partner carriers.

British Airways and Iberia are the exceptions to this rule. BA redemption flights are usually accompanied by several hundreds of dollars in extra fees.

Be aware of some of the exceptions to the zone-to-zone award rates! If origin and destination of the award ticket are in the same zone, transit through another zone will incur additional redemption charges.

Read the following post on One Mile at a Time for extra details on transit zones with AA award tickets:
http://boardingarea.com/onemileatatime/2012/04/29/the-dark-side-of-americans-award-ticket-rules/ ×

For itineraries starting or ending in Japan there are two different possible calculations. If there is a transfer on the itinerary and the transfer is in Japan, Zone 1A applies. If there is a transfer outside Japan then the higher Zone 1B calculation applies. ×

Delta flights do not incur fuel surcharges. Generally, flights originating in the USA do not have fuel surcharges broken out. But there are some exceptions such as Aeroflot (SU) and Air Europa (UX) to Europe as well as China Airlines (CI), China Southern (CZ) and China Eastern (MU), these airlines all charge significant YQ.

Korean Air Lines (KE) and Virgin Australia (DJ) are good options for the Pacific rim. Aerolíneas Argentinas (AR) and AeroMéxico (AM) are good choice for Latin America. To avoid fuel surcharges to Europe, use KLM (KL), Air France (AF),  and Alitalia (AZ).

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EuroBonus does not charge fuel surcharges on its own or on partner award flights. One-way awards are available at 60% of the cost of a round trip ticket.
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One-way award tickets can be booked at half the miles cost of round-trip tickets.×

Korean Air adds fuel surcharges where the airlines charge them on revenue tickets. The Korean Air program does not allow one-way redemptions for SkyTeam award flights.

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TAM Fidelidade does not charge fuel surcharges on its award flights. As per government regulation, flights originating in Brazil cannot break out fuel surcharges. The programs can, however, charge airport taxes and fees on award tickets, which can be significant.

The rule about Brazil applies to all programs, not only TAM Fidelidade and GOL Smiles, so that award flights coming from Brazil, booked through any program, are often a very good bargain on any program. ×

Fuel surcharges (YQ) are added for most international itineraries on most partner airlines. However, surcharges vary from airline to airline, for example Asiana Airlines (OZ) surcharges are lower than others such as Lufthansa (LH). No surcharges are collected if you redeem Aegean miles to travel on Air New Zealand (NZ) departing from New Zealand or on flights within the USA/Canada/Mexico on UA/US/AC.

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Miles & More adds fuel surcharges and other fees to the miles required for an award ticket. These fees can be prohibitively expensive.General agreement seems to be that award flights in business and first class are still good bargains, whereas award flights in economy class can sometimes be more expensive than all-in tickets purchased for cash.

It is worth looking for Star Alliance flights operated by American or Brazilian airlines as they may not have fuel surcharges. LOT Polish flights do not incur a fuel surcharge.

Be aware of some of the exceptions to the zone-to-zone award rates! If origin and destination of the award ticket are in the same zone, transit through another zone will incur additional redemption charges.

One way flight awards with Miles & more are 50% of the round trip rates. They are rounded down to the next 1,000-mile threshold.
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One-way rates with Miles & Smiles cost 50% of the round trip rates.
A companion ticket can be redeemed for 70% of the regular award rate.
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Flights redeemed through SAA Voyager incur a fuel surcharge. This applies to both SAA and partner flights.
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Taxes and fuel surcharges are levied on redemption tickets issued by airberlin's topbonus program. The fees can be high especially on short flights. However, topbonus has the option of paying for these fees with miles. Domestic fees can be covered with 7,500 miles per flight and international fees with 12,500 per flight. ×

United no longer publishes an award chart and has switched to dynamic rates. The rates you see here have been sourced from the award search engine at united.com. They represent the lowest (Saver) rates we could find.

United Mileage Plus does not break out fuel surcharges on its flights or any of the Star Alliance flights!
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Surcharges on Aeroplan award tickets can be significant. They consist of various items such as fuel surcharges, sundry charges (such as for security, facilities and passengers), taxes (HST in Canada, airport taxes etc.) and other smaller fees (e.g. airport fees). The final cost of all surcharges is also dependent on which airlines are being used and how many legs the itinerary has. The most significant cost is usually the fuel surcharge. Trans-oceanic flights usually incur several hundreds of dollars in surcharges.

Fuel surcharges do not apply to all Star Alliance airlines, the following carriers incur a fuel surcharge when booking through Aerolpan: Air Canada, Adria, Asiana, Austrian, LOT Polish, Lufthansa, TAP Portugal, THAI.
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