ups

I booked LHR-DEL return a few days ago and Jet gave the prices in GBP. I wanted to use my UK Amex card to get the double MR points. To Jet's credit, it did pop up a message that Amex and Diners cards will be settled in INR and the amount may be different when it appears on the statement. I was in a rush of sorts to confirm the booking, and while it did strike that I might get hit with forex processing fee, I went ahead and confirmed anyway.

Now Amex has charged me 3% processing fee.

In hindsight, I think if I used the INR Premier Miles card, I would have earned almost 12K PM miles, and the card would have been charged in GBP but the processing fee would've been similar (I think!). The Amex card will only earn me some 2700 points.

As a simple like-for-like comparison, since both programs allow conversion to Avios, PM would've given 12K avios as opposed to Amex's conversion of 2700 avios (since both allow conversion at 1:1). Now I'm dreading not giving it a thought before making the payment!

Why can Jet not settle Amex in GBP when they can do it for Visa and MasterCard?


Edit: Just had a look at my MR account and it's not as bad as I thought - Amex has given me just over 6K points for this. There is some additional "Outbound spend bonus" (not sure if this is the one for foreign spend, as they do have a double points offer on that) and also a "Thanks for recommending your Card" bonus of 2K points - no idea what this is! I might ask in the Amex forum about this...

hyderago

Why would your UK Amex card be charged in INR but Indian Premier Miles card charged in GBP? I think that no matter which card you use and where you are located, you will be charged in INR. IIRC, that is even mentioned somewhere in the fine print of the terms and conditions displayed before you buy the ticket.

ups

Because Jet said so!

I was booking on the UK website (prices displayed in GBP). When you choose Amex as the payment option, it pops up a message saying Amex and Diners are charged in INR, which is not the case with Visa and Mastercard (implying they are charged in GBP).

Since PM is Visa (or MC), it would've been charged in GBP. And since I used Amex, they did charge me in INR (I can see that on my Amex statement).

hyderago

I don't think that is what they are implying. I think that Jet has a different processing system for Amex/Diners than it does for MC/Visa. Depending on the card you use, the corresponding message shows up. I'm pretty sure that the message is the same for both. I'm saying this because I used a MC to buy a ticket on Jet Airways last year and was charged in INR IIRC.

Keyser

perhaps this has more to do with amex than with jet....i remember somebody mentioning here that there are some problems with amex refunds as well on the jet site....

jasepl

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry9000/5.0.0.822 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

That would be me.

But I haven't found other airlines to have the same problems. So maybe its just Jet after all. Or perhaps the Jet/Amex combo doesn't work as well as it should (which doesn't augur well for their future partnership).

ups

Here is the exact message that Jet displays if you choose Amex - to me it looks like Amex/Diners are charged in INR, and Visa/MC in GBP (happy to be corrected for future though!):
Btw - it turns out the 2K bonus are part of the 22K joining bonus (Amex apparently posts 2K and 20K separately). So I actually earned 4K MR points, which I'm still not happy with myself for

Oh well, lesson learnt for next time...

Yaatri

It has to do with convertibility of INR.
Price will be displayed in the country of sale, whereas fare is quoted in the currency of origin. Usually, charge will be made in the currency of the place where the transaction is deemed to take place.
Since you purchased LHR-DEL from U.K. based web site, in absence of currency controls, the charge would be made in GBP.

Credit cards issued by Indian banks probably settle in INR as due to currency regulations.