Lately, fuel dumping became a magic formula frequently appearing at air ticket forums. It is a way how to deduct a fuel surcharge (or at least a part of it) from the final flight ticket price. And now, we are going to show you how to do that.
Fuel Surcharges
To start with, let’s make it clear of how the final price is composed, and what we passengers pay it. You can figure it out with any ticket. The best way to do that is to use Matrix. Just pick any flight that you like.
The final price is always composed of a basic price (which is 2,041 CZK in our example), to which various fees are added. Usually, the biggest amount is made by a fuel surcharge, when it comes to long flights. Airline companies came up with this term in order to be able to response quickly to jet fuel price increases. However, they use it for dynamic, quick, and effective increasing and/or decreasing of final prices. This kind of fee is always labeled as YQ or YR. In our example, the ticket is composed of more than one fuel tax, as flights are operated by various airline companies. In total, they are 6,394 CZK, which is more than a half of the price.
The Right Candidate
As we already said, Fuel Dumping is a specific way of dumping/eliminating (at least) a part of fuel surcharges from total prices. In such case, we will focus on tickets whose prices are made of fuel taxes largely (for example a ticket from Prague to NYC). Prices have to be high enough in order to be, dumped it. It’s important to note here that it’s not possible to deduct fuel surcharge from all tickets, and also, it takes time before you find the right structure. Matrix can be very helpful in this case because thanks to it you can become familiar with complete “fare rules.” These define what is and what is not possible to do in this tariff. For example, how many stops are allowed, or how much time they can take, or required minimum duration of stay in your destination.
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In the scope of these rules, the „Combinability“ section defines, whether it is possible to drop YQ with a given tariff. If you find out that “END-ON-END COMBINATIONS” and “SIDE TRIPS” are permitted, you can probably fuel dump. Nevertheless, even in such case, there can be restrictions, such as “END-ON-END COMBINATIONS PERMITTED WITH FARES WITHIN AREA 1″ which means that you can combine segments found in North America only (Area 1 is a code for the area of North America in aviation).Fuel Dumping Types
Deducting fuel taxes can be done in a number of various ways. From, so-called, selfdump tickets (when the routing itself takes a part of YQ away erroneously), through routing adjustment, to adding an extra flight.
Open Jaw – we try to find such a combination in which one departure from one place and return to a different one. For instance, I find a ticket from Prague to New York and another one, from New York to Prague. The price could be acceptable, but if we returned from New York to Vienna instead, the resulting price could be much lower. Then, a bus ticket cost from Vienna to Prague is negligible.
Doble Open Jaw – as the name suggests, these are tickets with different departure and return cities for both directions. To give an example, from Prague to New York and from Philadelphia to Vienna.
Adding a flight (the strike) – it might seem strange and illogical, but adding another flight to your ticket can significantly reduce the resulting price. Airline companies have certain contracts with each other which ensure price advantages for flight connections provided by the different airline company. Thanks to that, errors occur, when adding a flight deletes the whole or a part of a fuel surcharge. Such a flight (sometimes called the strike) has to be short and cheap so that its price is not higher than a subsequent YQ deduction.
Such a flight can be the first start of our journey – 1X (the first strike), or among following planned flights – 2X (the second strike), or after your return 3X (the third strike).
3X – The third strike (the Holy Grail) – speaking of fuel dumping, many people automatically think of 3X. Why? Because when I purchase a ticket for a transfer flight and omit one of the segments, the rest of them will be forfeited. Because of that, it is very difficult to find 1X or 2X which would work for you, since you have to fly all added flights.
As 3X is scheduled at the end of your itinerary, there is no risk of sanction if you don’t fly the last flight. Below, you can see a return ticket from Delhi to Chicago. Thanks to adding the strike, it was possible to reduce its price by more than 1/3 of the total price. When we check out Matrix we managed to take away the whole YQ of 600 USD.
Always, when someone writes about 3X, nobody will ever tell you what the strike exactly is. Because this added flight often works the same way in combination with another flight provided by a given company. In our case, it is possible to apply this strike on all Air India flights with similar fare rules, and the whole fuel surcharge should be always deduced.
How to Find Your First Working 3X Strike
Assuming we have already picked the flight with a high fuel surcharge, and fare rules imply the possibility to find a working strike, where to start to look for it?, In order to reduce a surcharge, three rules need to be obeyed for the added flight:
- It has to be the same company
- Or a partner airline company
Or a company belonging to the same airline alliance
Well, now you need only a bit of luck and, most importantly, patience. You can find your first fuel dumping tariff in a few minutes or a few weeks, it all depends on your luck. You need to try out many various short flights provided by various companies from various places on the planet. You can use Skyscanner or your favourite search engine. You can also try the Skyscanner mobile app for Android or iOS. Of course, you need to look for, so-called Multicity tickets when you look for 3X.
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Fuel Dumping Apps and Webs
Formerly, there was no other possibility to find your 3X, than to do so by “brute force” – to sit in front of your computer and try out dozens or hundreds of short flights, until you find the right one by chance. Today, it is possible to find a few automated systems which will do it for you.
- FuelDumpStrike
You have to download the program from this website and install it on your computer. After running it, you only enter the ticket you are looking for and it will find strikes itself. A 100% scan of all possible combinations usually takes more than 24 hours, but during the scanning you don’t have to do anything. If you turn it off, it will start scanning at the same spot where it stopped after you turn it on again. When the scanning is completed, you will be sent an email with a list of all combinations scanned.
- Secret Flying Fuel Dumping Tool
It will search through various possible strikes for you. As usual, you will enter the flight you look for and add a list of airports (it can be, say, 20 airports) where you want to find your strike. Then, just click and many new windows to search for all possible combinations will pop up (you have to have pop-up windows enabled).
A Warning to Conclude With
Using Fuel Dump methods could, on rare occasions, cause a cancellation of such ticket, even in the middle of the itinerary, or an airline company might require you to pay the rest of a fuel surcharge. However, this happens very rarely, and the same is true for deletion of miles earned for a loyalty program.
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How interesting! I had never thought to consider the price of fuel, let alone looked into eliminating it. Great post!
Hey man, appreciate the blog post. Very good job explaining fuel dumping. Might I suggest however that you remove the specific example from Air India? If they see a post like this, they will likely try to hunt for the loophole, and will shut down the deal for everyone. Not worth risking it….
I am glad that you like the post.
I understand that is shouldn’t be shown the working strikes, but in this case the example is more than a year old and it’s actually not working 🙁 So right now it’s really just example.
Hi Tom,
Great article which brings more information that what I could have read before on this specific FD matter.
However, are you aware of any alternative link to download the program, as the long proposed in your article brings to a dead page.
Thank You
Hi Yooo,
you are right its down 🙁 I have the program in my laptop and its not working any more…
Unfortunately neither link to a Fuel Dump app is workable.
Any other ideas for a new tool?
Unfortunately, I don´t know about any new working alternative :/
Sadly, SF took the FD tool down after the EA FD exploded back in March. I wonder if they will ever bring it back.
Thank you for the excellent article
Do you realize that the air india example doesnt work anymore because of folks like you, who dont have no regards for the FD community and post trick in open.
Of course, neither is it hard for anyone in the business to figure out your 3x. While explaining FD is one thing, I would strongly advise you to mask the airline name just like you masked 3x so as to airline doesnt take cognizance of the remaining routes.
Thanks for your understanding and co-operation.
Joans, I know about it.
At the time when I wrote this article, this 3x didn’t work. Otherwise, I wouldn’t show it so obvious.
I was able to find a fuel dump ticket to Africa, and I am a little nervous about taking the flight. I know of many people that booked a similar combination directly through the African Airline, or a booking website and have had their tickets cancelled. I booked mine through a US alliance partner airline and my first leg of the flight is in the US on the US based carrier, then I board the flight with the partner airline. I have received a confirmation from the US carrier, as well as I called the African airline asking general questions about my reservation (in hopes of not giving away the fuel dump status), they said they do not see any issues with my reservation and have confirmed my ticket. The ticket itself has a YR amount of $10 so there is technically a fuel surcharge on it. I also purchased travel insurance. I guess my fear is that they can cancel my ticket at any time. If at my initial departure city they ticket me all the way through to Africa am I ok? Or could they deny me boarding at some other leg of my trip? In general would I be refunded if they cancel my ticket? Would travel insurance provide any assistance to me?
Generally speaking, the airlines can cancel any issued ticket anytime. The general rule is that the airline can’t cancel the flight 14 days before departure without a compensation. If they cancel your ticket, you will definitely get the money back, but probably not for the insurance, and It will not help you too much in this case. If you are already on the first leg, I certainly wouldn’t be afraid of the subsequent cancellation. However, I would check the entire reservation at http://www.checkmytrip.com or http://www.viewtrip.com.
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Thank you, I am glad you like the post…
Are there any apps helping to find third strikes? You posted two in this article, but they are no longer valid.
Unfortunately, I don’t know about any working app right now. I hope it will be some in future so I’m monitoring it.
Working on a tool using your data here… thanks Tom.
Never knew this, appreciate it for letting me know.
Dear Mullany, happy you like our article.
Hi Tom. Great article ! I’d like to download the FuelDumpStrike program (the one that scans for the missing flights), but the link http://www.fueldumpstrike.com is no longer working. Do you know where I could download it ? Is there a new link for that?
Thanks again for your help and for sharing your knowledge!
I am sorry, but I don’t know where you can download it now.
if have a 3x strike then where will i get my baggage dude.
cauz i already departed the second airport , and the flight continues to go the third airport(which is a fuel dump strike)????
You might understand that wrong, but 3x strike is usually in weeks later and you will never use it. I guess you are talking about skipping the last leg on your itinerary. Anyway, that’s different technique on how to find a cheaper flight.
Just a comment from the other side of the coin. What you are exploiting is genuine filing issues that do occur with airlines. You are also blocking space on flights that will not be flown on (one reason airlines overbook) Airlines increasingly now cancel bookings made this way as they know people are knowingly booking erroneous fares. Those that are honoured really are only due to negative publicity carrier will get, they simply regain the money lost by increasing fares across all other flights. So all you are doing is taking a bit of money off for a few people – lucky them – while everybody else foots the bill. So its like the phoney whiplash claims insurance companies pay out on while everybody elses premiums go up. Thankfully the airline industry is getting better at preventing these issues and not honouring erroneous fares that do occur. This sums up the ‘so long as I get want and stuff everybody else’ attitude prevalent now. I know you wont post this message but think its worth just to hear a different point of view. There are already great genuine deals available to savvy shoppers and would be more still if airlines did not have to cover losses fro when things do go wrong.
Thank you for your comment, I understand what you mean but I don’t agree with you. The first thing, in general, I think that the airlines are in a much better position than the regular economy customer, e.g. you have to accept changes of flight, you cannot change the name even when it is mistyped, etc. Total costs for the airline made by fuel dump tickets are very small (compare to their total incomes) as there aren’t many people who actually use it. Airline definitely doesn’t use overbooking because of some small number of people who use fuel dump tricks. They do it because they have internal statistics and guess how many passengers will miss some flight. Some say that overbooking is usually about 10% seat and much more than some fuel dump tickets.
Anyway, I personally don’t use Fuel Dump anymore, as it is very time-consuming so I rather buy regular deal, but I think that anyone can try it.
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