Reduced Taxes on Airline Tickets

July 23, 2011

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2 min read

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I have to be honest, I haven't been closely following the drama in Washington over the budget, but I did read an interesting blog post from Gary at View from the Wing about the the possibility of less taxes being collected on airline tickets. And as of today, fewer government taxes on airline tickets, which is great news to consumers.

I can vouch for this firsthand, because yesterday I booked two domestic airline tickets on delta.com and the the fee breakdown was:

Fare: 442.79 USD
Tax: 43.91 TX
Total: 486.70 USD

The same exact itinerary today:

Fare: 433.49 USD
Tax: 7.00 TX
Total: 440.49 USD

Luckily Delta allows 24 hour risk-free cancellations, so I re-booked the itinerary at the lower rate (plus the fare dropped - whether that was due to the tax implications, I do not know) and then canceled my more expensive itinerary, saving me $92.42. Not bad!

If you are in the market for airline tickets, today could be a good day to make your bookings and take advantage of these savings. I'm not sure what the savings would be on an international ticket, but saving 10% was a nice little bonus for me since fares have been sky-high this summer!