Budget Travel - Tiger Airways website incompatible with US credit cards

Sometime over the past month, Tiger Airways has instituted a fraud protection system that effectively shuts out credit cards issued in the US. CRs at Tiger refer me to Visa, Visa refers me to Tiger. "Verified by Visa" registration makes no difference. Transaction shows up as "declined" at Tiger, but no record of transaction at all at Visa. MC similarly declined. This incompatibility makes it impossible to book a seat online, and makes this a useless airline for me.

You'd think they'd figure this out.:confused:

I attempted multiple times to book Malaysian Railways from the U.S. in late 2006 after "verified" was instituted. It was finally sorted out by my card issuer who was blocking the transaction as fraudulent.

I suggest that you call the card issuer and request that they not block (if not all foreign transactions, or at least transactions with Tiger) until further notice from you. Bank America is notorious for this type of nonsense. I have stopped using my Alaska Visa for this reason as well as the high foreign currency transaction fees.

Keep calling until you find a knowledgable customer service rep at the credit card company.

Yes, I've already done this, and I had a long conversation with Chase's fraud protection person, but apparently it's not at their end, but at Tiger's end.

I had a problem that sounds very similar to this while trying to purchase an Alsa (Spanish bus company) ticket online using a Mastercard. I tried using Mastercards from 2 different Canadian issuers and neither worked. Since I needed to travel the next day I said the he_ _ with it and took the train.

Logically it would seem that the problem was with the merchant, because I have used the same credit cards for purchasing tickets online from numerous other European plane, train, and bus companies with no problem.

There is a fairly detailed page on the Tiger website;

http://www.tigerairways.com/home/vbv_mcsc.php

discussing the use of Verified by Visa and Master securecode, but it sounds like it is supposed to work whether your credit card has these security features enabled or not ?

Any other wisdom on this subject would be greatly appreciated, as I may be wanting to purchase Tiger Airways tickets in the near future.

I tried making a Tiger reservation again, this time with my bank debit card, which has the Visa logo on it, and for whatever reason it worked. Of course it's not a "real" credit card. Which means that Tiger is selectively blocking. If you manage to find the e-mail address of the webmaster, or indeed, any e-mail address at all on their website, please let me know.

If you manage to find (...) any e-mail address at all on their website, please let me know.
groups@tigerairways.com is published on the website (for group bookings). You might try your luck with this address, maybe they forward your inquiry to the appropriate department.

I booked a ticket yesterday on Tiger using a US issued MC. I had some trouble with several declines and had to accept their "verification system". I really don't know what that means, but I'm not too worried since my bank, USAA, is pretty good about correcting "issues".

Be really careful using a debit card online for anything!

Odd that their website will verify a debit card, but not a Chase Visa. I do agree with you about the debit card, in general.

As mentioned above, I had to call my bank and get them to enter a notation into my account for frequent foreign transactions. The card finally used was a USAA Mastercard. There seem to have been no problems since with one sorta major exception, they managed to enter an asiarooms.com charge 4 times and a Vietnam-based one three times. In order to clear it up one has to write them a spedifically-worded form letter that they dictate to you. The wording must be exact, but what does one want from a military-minded credit card?

Be sure that you have suffiicent credit on your card to deal with these errors. Better the errors, IMO, then being declined someplace like Luang Prabang or Phu Quoc.

I had the same problem with making purchases on Tiger Airways with a U.S. credit card. I called the credit card company and they said that no charges (accepted, declined, or whatever) had been made to the card. So, basically, Tiger never submitted the purchase to the credit card company. That makes sense, because I've used this card for other Asian airlines and never had a problem.

I tried calling their customer service center in Singapore, but that was a nightmare. Besides paying for the call I had to repeat everything several times and couldn't understand what they were saying. About 75% of the way through the transaction I lost the call. Rather than start over I just said "forget it".

That would be my advice to anyone else considering Tiger. I've never had any problems booking with Air Asia.

I was just able to use a capital one visa card based in the US.

Have booked successfully before with a US Bank Visa, but the credit union Visa didn't work (the CU Visa also had Verified on it).

I was just able to use a capital one visa card based in the US.

That's funny. My capital one card failed twice. My American express card also failed.

I am having the same problem with Cebuairpacific
trying to ticket TPE-MNL-TPE.
I will try some of the alternatives mentioned here. Thanks.

AirAsia seems to now be doing the same thing.

After limited success with Tiger using my USAA CC, I can't get it to work at all on AirAsia. AirAsia did accept my Citi card on the first try, so I guess I can live with a 3% surcharge to use that one.

USAA swears that they never see an attempted charge and are not declining anything. My suspicion is it is that crappy "SecureCard" which is causing the problem. Citi didn't go through it. AirAsia doesn't allow you to opt out.

I've had really good luck with US Bank cards while charging things in obscure places. I've also NEVER recieved a call from US Bank's fraud prevention dept asking about recent transactions and threatening to decline all transactions if I don't call back. (Had this recently with my Credit Union and Discover both and it really irks me).

The other day when I told my credit union that I'd be in Europe for the summer they let me know that they block all of their cards in Spain so I can't use the debit or credit card there. I imagine they also selectively block other countries around the world but didn't ask.

this isn't the only company having these problems. MBNA in the uk are doing the same. when making a payment to your credit card with your debit card the verified by visa and mastercard secure are just declining the transaction as a c5 error. Best thing to do is just ring them.

I recently booked tickets on Tiger using an Australian credit card and had a few issues with VbV (Verified by Visa) but these were resolved when I downloaded their "plug-in" which the site indicated was missing in a pop-up window (maybe your browser has pop-ups disabled).

On another Tiger web site issue - they recently added the abilty to pre-book a seat for $5 (SGD) but this does not work properly at this stage. I ended up having to do it in a separate transaction and of course had to pay another $3 credit card service fee (charged by Tiger).

And one final titbit on Tiger - they strickly enforece the 15Kg checked luggage limit but (when I travelled - in the past 2 weeks) they did not check the size, number or weight of carry on luggage even though their web site says that they do.

I recently booked tickets on Tiger using an Australian credit card and had a few issues with VbV (Verified by Visa) but these were resolved when I downloaded their "plug-in" which the site indicated was missing in a pop-up window (maybe your browser has pop-ups disabled).

On another Tiger web site issue - they recently added the abilty to pre-book a seat for $5 (SGD) but this does not work properly at this stage. I ended up having to do it in a separate transaction and of course had to pay another $3 credit card service fee (charged by Tiger).

And one final titbit on Tiger - they strickly enforece the 15Kg checked luggage limit but (when I travelled - in the past 2 weeks) they did not check the size, number or weight of carry on luggage even though their web site says that they do.

They do it selectively.

Sometime over the past month, Tiger Airways has instituted a fraud protection system :


Well it doesn't work - my wifes credit card (non-US issue) just got hit with six fraudulent online ticket purchases.

I'v had the same problem trying to use a US issued card with Tiger. Also with Cebupacific. They each direct me to their home offices in Singapore for Tiger, and Manila for Cebupacific. Expensive calls and still no ticket. I could understand about half of what the Singapore lady said and about a fourth of the Philippana. A waste of money on international calls. However, when I arrived in Singapore and the Philippines, I used the card with no problems. Oddly enough, I had the same problem with Western Union trying to send money to the Philippines.
Pschafer, I will try your suggestion about popups. The popup with the Authorization never happened with the Western Union Attempt. Thanks for the tip.

Dave

Hye just an update to this thread, i tried buying a ticket from Manila to Macau, tried the website and over the phone with my vis and mastercard but no luck. Turns out you need to call the singapore office and tell them to charge you in SGD not USD, and for some reason it goes through

"Website CC processing down", US (foreign) CC's don't work; all a SCAM to get you to call in to the Call Center so you can be bilked for double the website fare. This is just a clumsy scam they've been running for months on end.

YOU SUCK TIGER (And I thought Air Asia was bad).

BP