Budget Travel - Tiger Airways not accepting US based credit card?

Hello all,

I was trying to buy a RT ticket on Tiger Airways. Went thru the whole process including the page before CC confirmation-it offers to charge in one's country currency (USA); hit the purchase button and came back twice rejected.

Can anybody offer a solution? Thanks.

Can anybody offer a solution? Thanks.

Welcome to FlyerTalk htwild1 !

Hopefully someone will offer some ideas for you. There have been some recent discussions about US credit cards not being accepted by Asian LCCs. It's been a couple of years, but I sucessfully used my Credit Union VISA check card for AirAsia and Jet*Asia.

Not sure if it works for other airlines, or it only worked a couple of years ago, but it may be that the regular bank CCs just don't work too well.

EmailKid

have you signed up for verified by visa/mastercard secure? If not and you are prompted you will be declined. Quite a few people were effected by this earlier in the year.

So, now one of us knows how it feels to show up in the US w/ a foreign credit card and have it turned down all over the place.

have you signed up for verified by visa/mastercard secure? If not and you are prompted you will be declined. Quite a few people were effected by this earlier in the year.

Thank you, that's good to know as I'm planning to use Tiger next year. Here's the link (http://www.tigerairways.com.au/home/vbv_mcsc.php) on TR site if anybody is looking.

Hello all,

I was trying to buy a RT ticket on Tiger Airways. Went thru the whole process including the page before CC confirmation-it offers to charge in one's country currency (USA); hit the purchase button and came back twice rejected.

Can anybody offer a solution? Thanks.

Call your cc company first!!! A lot of US based cc companies categorically deny all transaction initiated in SE Asia. I used Tiger Airways at least twice a year for the past three years and just last week from HKT to SIN. I use a Capital One CC since they do not levy a "currency conversion charge" and are more opt to approve international charges. I spoke to their security department once about my frequent travels to SE Asia and did not have any acceptance issues since. By the way, I usually purchase all my air travel on line as well. Good Luck...and have fun;)

Thanks for all the suggestions. After I was denied on the web site, I called the cc company but no help there.

So you are saying 1) sign up for Verify by Visa program 2) call the cc company ahead of the purchase?

I will try to do those, including using Cap One. Other cc charge like 3% foreign transaction fees.

PS: the transaction is initiated from the USA.

Other cc charge like 3% foreign transaction fees.

PS: the transaction is initiated from the USA.

NO 3% fee with my Credit Union VISA. Purchased in US, prior to travel to SIN about two years ago. Used same CC in BKK just last week at the hotel, and used it a year and a half ago to purchase a suit in BKK - much cheaper than the famous suits in HKG, and also from Indian tailors.

EmailKid

When I had this type of problem before, I made the booking through an on-line travel agency in the foreign country and paid the travel agency with a credit card.

Update:

Tried all approaches from calling Cap One, tried other ccs, did not work.

Found another LCC Jetstar Asia offering almost the same airfare but was confused about this quote on their web site:
"Payment

Please enter your international credit card (only International Credit Cards are accepted) information on this page. When you have provided payment details, and are ready to complete your booking, click the 'Purchase' button.

All bookings made using an electronic form of payment will automatically have a facilitation fee of SGD3.00 per passenger per segment applied."

Aren't all Visa/MC regardless of country origin "International Credit Cards" ?

Have not gone thru with the purchase yet.

Aren't all Visa/MC regardless of country origin "International Credit Cards" ?


No, the first 6 digits of your card tell the airline what country/bank issues it

Aren't all Visa/MC regardless of country origin "International Credit Cards" ?
Some banks issue credit cards only generally accepted within their own country. I have not heard of any US bank doing this though, so your US-based card should be "international".

Tried with my AA Citi card after calling them to get prior approval. Still did not work.

Will ask my niece to buy the ticket for me in Singapore. Thanks for all the info.

FWIW

I bought 6 Tiger Air tickets in June SIN-BKK in 2 separate PNRs/transactions. Used HH Amex on the Tiger Airways website.

First reservation sailed through. 2nd reservation was blocked by Amex. Called Amex to get it unblocked. 2nd reservation then proceeded without further incident.

Maybe AE is the one that they accept. I don't know what was the problem. Could be their website?

I have never tried purchasing tix through Tiger, but I was able to use my US based Amex for Air Brunei, Malaysia Berhad, Dragon, and Air Asia. I highly recommend calling the CC company ahead of time to warn them of a slew of foreign charges that are impending, as other posters have suggested. I've used my Amex in dozens of countries without a problem, including $10,000USD+ charges. It may be that CCs from smaller banks are not generally accepted whereas the CCs from the huge banks (BoA and Chase) are.

I tried Citi AA card. Will try one more time with BoA or Chase to see what happen. Thanks.

As others have mentioned, it's probably a "verified by visa" problem.

I can confirm that this is a "Verified by Visa" problem.

The same thing happened to me. I was trying to purchase tickets with my Visa card but it kept getting denied by the Tiger Airways web site. I tried it with multiple Visa cards.

I was able to register one of my cards on the Verified by Visa program on the visa.com web site. One card I was not able to register because the web site couldn't recognize my card. I tried calling the customer support number but I just kept getting forwarded back and forth between my card issuer and visa.

Anyway, I was able to finally purchase a ticket on Tiger Airways using the card I registered on the Verified by Visa program.

btw, I didn't see American Express as an credit card option, only visa & mastercard.

I bought 6 Tiger Air tickets in June SIN-BKK in 2 separate PNRs/transactions. Used HH Amex on the Tiger Airways website.

First reservation sailed through. 2nd reservation was blocked by Amex. Called Amex to get it unblocked. 2nd reservation then proceeded without further incident.


btw, I didn't see American Express as an credit card option, only visa & mastercard.

I bought a ticket SIN-KUL recently and I wanted to correct my previous post. Tiger doesn't take Amex and as it turned out, I didn't use Amex ,as I had earlier posted, the last time (Sin-BKK) either (I used Mastercard)

For my recent purchase, I tried to use Visa this time and the website wouldn't take it after 3 retries ("transaction denied" each time after 20 seconds or so). I called up my cc issuer and they said it wasn't an issue on their side - the transaction wasn't even coming through. So it seems an issue with Tiger's cc processor. "Verified by Visa" wasn't an option - it didn't recognize my Hilton Visa.

So I used Mastercard instead (which triggered my memory - I used M/C, not Amex, the last time as well a year ago). And no problems. Didn't even have to call up the cc issuer.

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

I studied abroad in Singapore in fall of 2007 and ran into this problem whenever I tried to book tickets on Tiger's website using Visa. I also first thought that it was a credit card problem, but it was not.

I was able to book whenever I called Tiger directly.

I've fought with this problem with Tiger. In my case none of my Mastercards from several banks work no matter what I did but ultimately a Visa card worked fine with "Verified by Visa". So I guess, if your Visa doesn't work, try a Mastercard and if your Mastercard doesn't work try a Visa.