Emirates will increase the fuel surcharge cost on frequent flyer award tickets from July 1st 2013, resulting in Skywards members paying substantially more for a 'free' flight.

The revised fees were revealed as Emirates and Qantas 'aligned' their respective fuel surcharge tariffs on frequent flyer redemption tickets, closing a loophole which has seen travellers avoid hundreds of dollars in Qantas fuel surcharges by using their points to book a codeshare Emirates flight.

Under the revised pricing, the fuel surcharge component of an Emirates frequent flyer ticket from Sydney to London will increase by $310, up from the current $150 to $460.

Here's the table in full.

Emirates says it will reduce base fares accordingly – from $1,872 to $1,562 in the Sydney-London example above – so that commercial ticket prices "will remain relatively unchanged", according to an Emirates spokesperson.

The increase comes only four months since Emirates first introduced a fuel surcharge to Emirates Skywards reward tickets, which were previously exempt from the add-on fee.

“On the joint Emirates and Qantas network, this adjustment is part of an on-going alignment effort which is a core component of the Emirates + Qantas global partnership" the spokesperson said. "Outside of this partnership, Emirates is independently adjusting its fuel surcharge on the airline’s wider network."

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