How To Pay Less Airline Taxes

If you have been following my blog, you know I just booked 4.5 round trip flights with miles from Los Angeles to Europe for next summer. I paid about $30 per flight in taxes. I waited to book my husband's flight over because he wasn't exactly sure when he wanted to join us.
Now this week he decided on his date so I decided to try the same scheme to book his ticket.
I transferred 20,000 Starwood points to Singapore Airlines. SPG usually gives a bonus of 5,000 points for the move.
Then I transferred 3,000 American Express Reward Points to Singapore Airlines to top off the account. This gives me 28,000 Kris Flyer miles with Singapore Airlines. Now Singapore Airlines has the nicest customer service agents ever and they will let you book one way tickets. Here's the best part, they charge just 27,500 for one tickets from Los Angeles to Europe. If you book this same ticket on United, you would pay 30,000 points. Amazing.
So when I called last week, the agent had a flight from Los Angeles to Paris and a flight from Los Angeles to Heathrow, but nothing to Berlin.
So I figured I would just buy a cheap domestic flight from one of those cities to Berlin so my husband could join us.
Well, once the points moved to Kris Flyer which took a few days, the agent told me those flights were gone.
Oh no.
But the agent had seats available on Lufthansa through Frankfurt. That works. But he says the taxes are $363. What? That's not almost free family travel.
I ask him to look again at other airlines that may have lower taxes. He finds another flight that has a layover in London and then onto Berlin for just $150 in taxes. We book that one!
British Airways is traditionally high in taxes and apparently so is Lufthansa. Good to know.