Argentina - Save 25% of airfare in Buenos Aires - using cash

Just confirmed that you can pay cash for airline tickets at the American Airlines office in Buenos Aires - at the official exchange rate! (A $25 in person fee applies.)

That means you could use your USD, exchange on the blue market, then pay for your ticket in pesos at the official rate. This means you would save at least 25% on your ticket price.

Not a bad deal...

The same could be said for any purchase where cash is accepted in Argentina.

The same could be said for any purchase where cash is accepted in Argentina.

Sure, but most people would not think to buy airline tickets in cash. (When was the last time anyone did that?) You'd just book online with your credit card. However, in this case you'd be losing 25%, so I thought this was a great tip.

You could probably figure that cities in the world that have remaining airline CTOs probably still have a fair % of customers who (1) don't have internet access, and (2) pay in cash.

This is a good thing for someone wanting to originate in EZE... but I dont see how someone from North America or Europe could benefit from this.... other than perhaps a RTW traveler that may get here on miles and then start the journey from Buenos Aires.

Even in this case, for an expensive ticket, I would be interested in knowing if an airline cashier would accept a AR$30,000 payment in cash. Doing so breaks at least 3 or 4 tax and banking regulations.... not saying its impossible, just that I would be interested to know if someone tried this and got away with it.

This is a good thing for someone wanting to originate in EZE... but I dont see how someone from North America or Europe could benefit from this.... other than perhaps a RTW traveler that may get here on miles and then start the journey from Buenos Aires.

Even in this case, for an expensive ticket, I would be interested in knowing if an airline cashier would accept a AR$30,000 payment in cash. Doing so breaks at least 3 or 4 tax and banking regulations.... not saying its impossible, just that I would be interested to know if someone tried this and got away with it.

You would have to use a check to do this properly.... although for visitors getting a check will be an issue unless you know a local.

The same could be said for any purchase where cash is accepted in Argentina.

One difference is that the "product" is something that's priced globally using dollars, doesn't need to be "imported" (indeed, one could quite likely buy a US-Europe-US e-ticket from a booking agent here - paying in pesos the fare converted at official rate from USD).

Perhaps a hassle if, as suggested above, you can't actually pay in cash (and would need a check), but this got me thinking that for Argentines who have contacts abroad, buying tickets for them here, paying in pesos, could be a rather attractive way to purchase something of value globally at an official peso:dollar conversion. Assuming they had some way to settle up with the other party, the local would either be getting dollars for their pesos at the official rate (which of course is not easily done otherwise), or managing to buy the ticket at a significant discount to what it would cost (in dollars) anywhere else in the world.

All that said, I would not be very inclined to risk it, as my experience refunding tickets in case of a change in plans has not been very good when booked in Argentina (through an agent), and indeed has only ever been recovered by disputing with my credit card... which of course would be impossible if the ticket had been paid using cash or check locally. But if there's reasonably high certainty of travel (or it's a ticket that would have been non-changeable/non-refundable anyway), then this could be an interesting sort of loophole.