Mark_T

Just a heads-up for anyone else in my position.

The option to select your country of residence when making an online reservation has gone...

The system will now assume that whatever country you have in your AAdvantage member record is your country of residence and will price all tickets accordingly no matter which option you select for the country from the top of the website.

There used to be an option on the reservation search form to indicate which country to use, but this has been removed.

dickinson

Was there a way to game/abuse this functionality? Just wondering why it was eliminated.

coolcoil

I am not aware of any. I too used this function all of the time as I live outside the USA but still buy my tickets with a USA credit card. Can I do the math to convert back to dollars? Sure, but it's a pain in the neck. The work around is to bookmark the USA site and then not be logged in when searching for flights.

I'm thinking about switching my address to my commercial mailbox in the USA just so I don't have to deal with this stuff. It's not like AA has ever sent me any mail here anyway.

This is just one of many useful functionalities, listed in the main thread, that have gone away. I'm using the AA site less and less and looking at OTA sites.

Fly2Where

Not sure if i understand you correctly. I just used this 2 days ago changed to netherland, no problem , and tried just now, no problem changing country of origin up to payment page, so I assumed the sale will go thru as usual.

coolcoil

When you changed countries, were you switching between countries that share the same currency? Also, were you logged in? I too can change countries, but it does not solve my problem The first thing I did when I started getting prices in pesos instead of dollars was to use the country selection dropdown box to pick USA/English. The change appeared to take, but I kept getting prices in pesos.

Microwave

Am I missing something? Just log out, buy your tickets, then after they're bought add your AAdvantage number. If the site continues to price in the wrong currency, change browsers or switch to private browsing.

Mark_T

What has changed is that previously the web site would respect the country choice you made on the web, and if for any reason you needed to force a different choice you could do that through the 'country of residence' field.

The problems with this came in two stages, firstly they stopped letting you use the AA.com website to pay using a UK based credit card even if the ticket had been priced in GBP through the use of the 'country of residence' field.

Then most recently they removed the 'country of residence' option and at the same time changed the system to default to your address on the AAdvantage record instead of following the country choice you made on the website.

Yes, you can work around this by not logging in when purchasing a ticket but this is cumbersome and requires you to enter all the details that normally auto-populate so frankly it isn't really an option for regular bookings.

Also I tend to hold flights for several days before purchase and that requires multiple re-bookings due to the 24 hour limit on holds so that would get old really fast.

I'm also not sure what will happen if I tried to purchase a flight on the UK website which the system has priced in USD.

When I tried this the other way around on AA.com with a ticket priced in GBP, the transaction would not complete.

coolcoil

No, you're not missing anything. The point is that a functionality that was very useful for a number of us went away for no apparent reason, as did many useful functions on the old site, and now we have to do a work-around.

It's not a deal breaker, but another item in the growing list of items that each make it a little bit harder to do business with AA. We struggle with the same thing in my company - the IT department in charge of our customer interfacing software continually pushes to remove functionality that our customers use because the IT department can save pocket change by not maintaining the function. Every time they come to us with a change, they always have a proposed work around that adds a "just a few minutes" to the customer's process.

Fly2Where

Did you try to clear cookie or use private mode? I was not logged in, but once I got the price I needed, then i log in. As I said, I just purchase one from Netherland two days ago, paid in euro, credit charged, no problem at all. (note, netherland site does not have hold function, but specifically states 24 refund policy, and the money was charged 2 days later). However, after my purchase, the website will ONLY search under netherland site (even domestic US flights), what i did was go back to aa.com, select USA and save country. Now I can use aa.com (USA) again.

Sure it might not help OP since he tried to use hold function which might not available on other countries site.

Fly2Where

the currency difference is around 1% from Netherland, but 5% for Canada site.
I hold a ticket from canada site, I can't pay over the internet. I have to call to pay. first agent won't allow me to pay in CAD, but agreed to give me a credit for the price difference. Another ticket, again from Canada site, no problem at all, I asked the agent why other agent don't let me use US credit card for canada purchase, he just told me EXP allowed to use any currency to pay, but it's only applies to EXP, and I had to call to pay, can't to it online.

coolcoil

This definitely appears to be tied to your home address. I was playing around and found a separate box in my account profile to choose "country of residence" and switched that to the USA, while leaving my home address in Colombia. Same results as before.

I then logged into my VPN so that the server would think that I was in the USA, but that changed nothing.

My country selector is set to USA English, my bookmark takes me to the US site and the selector shows the US flag through the entire process but I'm still getting prices in pesos.

Fly2Where

American Airlines logo

1 2 3 4 5 6
Select Dates Select Flights Price Passenger
Details Payment Confirmation

Review Your Flight Details
New York to Paris
Flight 1 Monday, 17. October 2016

Departure: 17:20 New York, United States Of America - John F Kennedy International, terminal 8
Arrival: 06:45 +1 day(s) Paris, France - Charles De Gaulle, terminal 2A
Airline American Airlines AA 44
Aircraft: Boeing 767-300/300ER
Fare Type/Cabin: Standard/Main Cabin
CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST, DINNER

Paris to New York
Flight 1 Monday, 24. October 2016

Departure: 11:10 Paris, France - Charles De Gaulle, terminal 2A
Arrival: 13:40 New York, United States Of America - John F Kennedy International, terminal 8
Airline American Airlines AA 45
Aircraft: Boeing 767-300/300ER
Fare Type/Cabin: Standard/Main Cabin
SNACK OR BRUNCH, LUNCH

Legend:
EUR = Euro
Price
Travellers Flights Taxes
1 Adult x (698.00 + 620.76) = 1,318.76 EUR
Total Price 1,318.76 EUR
Mini Rules
Fare Basis


Just did a random search, I don't know about you. i have no problem pricing in EUR, while I never change my home address

Fly2Where

This priced in AUD.. no problem at all.

American Airlines logo
Home
English
Plan Travel
Travel Information
AAdvantage
oneworld
1 2 3 4 5 6
Select Dates Select Flights Price Passenger
Details Payment Confirmation

Review Your Flight Details
Paris to New York
Flight 1 Monday, October 17, 2016

Departure: 11:10 Paris, France - Charles De Gaulle, terminal 2A
Arrival: 13:40 New York, United States Of America - John F Kennedy International, terminal 8
Airline American Airlines AA 45
Aircraft: Boeing 767-300/300ER
Fare Type/Cabin: Standard/Main Cabin
SNACK OR BRUNCH, LUNCH

New York to Paris
Flight 1 Monday, October 24, 2016

Departure: 17:20 New York, United States Of America - John F Kennedy International, terminal 8
Arrival: 06:45 +1 day(s) Paris, France - Charles De Gaulle, terminal 2A
Airline American Airlines AA 44
Aircraft: Boeing 767-300/300ER
Fare Type/Cabin: Standard/Main Cabin
CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST, DINNER

AUD = Australian Dollar
Price
Travellers
Flights Taxes, Fees & Charges
1 adult(s) x (96.00 + 537.80) = 633.80 AUD
Total Price 633.80 AUD
Mini Rules
Fare Basis

Fly2Where

This is priced in USD.
Sorry for multiple posts, just try to make a point, hope this can help someone. no need to change address.


Flight Depart Arrive
American Airlines
AA 44
New York (JFK)
October 19, 2016 05:20 PM
Travel Time : 7 h 25 m
Cabin Class : Economy
Seat : unassigned
Paris (CDG)
October 20, 2016 06:45 AM
Booking Code : S
Plane Type : 763
American Airlines
AA 45
Paris (CDG)
October 26, 2016 11:10 AM
Travel Time : 8 h 30 m
Cabin Class : Economy
Seat : unassigned
New York (JFK)
October 26, 2016 01:40 PM
Booking Code : S
Plane Type : 763
Fare Amount
Adult
1 × $459.00 USD
$459.00 USD
Taxes & Carrier-Imposed Fees
Taxes
$121.86 USD
Carrier-Imposed Fees
$576.00 USD
Price and Tax Information , Opens in a new window.
Flight Subtotal
$1,156.86 USD
View Fare Rules Link opens in a new window

You have 24 hours to cancel your trip for a full refund if you booked at least 7 days prior to departure.Refunds Policy Link opens in a new window
Flights not on American Airlines or American Eagle are on a request basis only. Fares and availability are subject to change.
In order to comply with federal security regulations, we may provide government agencies access to data you disclose to us.
If you choose to pay using a U.K.-billed credit card or U.K.-billed PayPal account, a processing fee of £4.50 per ticket may apply. Payments with debit cards are exempt from this fee.
Optional Services and Carrier Charges Link opens in a new window include, but are not limited to, items such as checked or carry-on baggage, seat selection and seat upgrades.
First/Business Fares may be an Instant Upgrade and therefore subject to restrictions.
Your Trip Price:
$1,156.86 USD
Baggage and Optional Charges Link opens in a new window

coolcoil

It may be limited to certain countries. I too was able to change to Australia and get pricing in AUD. I used the same procedure to switch to the USA site from the Australia site, ran the same search and my price came back in Colombian pesos.