Bitterroot

One more data point:

Successfully booked a Jet Airways domestic flight via the USA website, using a US Amex SPG card. No issues; transaction went through immediately; e-ticket in my e-inbox by the time I checked it afterward.

The website, though, only allows you a short time to complete the transaction before putting up a message that it will time out "in five minutes" from the warning......................

No seat selection offered (Z Class ticket in "Premiere").

SuperFlyBoy

Were you billed in USD or INR?

If you are in biz, you can try web checking-in now, with your PNR and personal details...

Bitterroot

The bill hasn't cleared Amex yet, so that's to be seen. FWIW, the ticket, and indeed the entire transaction, show US$ -- it's the default currency for the US site. It won't surprise me, though, if Amex applies a currency conversion charge against the INR equivalent................

aleph08

And I am pleased to report that the flights went without any hassle, just presented the e-ticket and was checked-in and boarded as normal. I was never asked to present the credit card I used for purchasing the ticket, etc.^

aktchi

I tried to purchase a $30 Indian Railways ticket this morning.

(1) My Citi MC was declined from every "gateway" offered at the website - Axis, ICICI, HDFC, etc., incredibly including Citibank (India) as well. According to Citi USA they never received any authorization request.

(2) Amex was declined at first, followed by a call from fraud department. After I assured them it was a legit charge, it went through.

Lesson for future: Call Amex first, then use Amex.

PS. Purchased a domestic flight ticket from Yatra.com with US-issued Amex. Smooth transaction, no hitch.

Keyser

this is very important....i always do this when traveling overseas....

aktchi

Same here, when I am actually traveling. However, I don't usually call the banks every time when I am in the USA and am going to buy from a non-US vendor. Mostly it is not necessary.

In this particular case, calling Citi would not have and did not help as my MC was being blocked by some Indian center and Citi/USA never got the request to approve. OTOH, calling Amex did help because apparently I had never used it for Indian railways and their computers initially flagged my purchase as suspicious.

Savage25

A couple of more data points from earlier this week - no problems using a UK-issued Amex on the Indigo site and on jetairways.com (with the location set to India to get the check fares which were not showing inventory on the UK location).

SuperFlyBoy

We book these tix all the time (with only India-based cards), and Amex works the best as it does not require seconday authentication, versus any MC/Visa...

It used to be exasperating to work with Citi's site, then authenticating back to IRCTC!

We used to have tons of reversals to check and deal with, so now use Amex so we don't have any problems. One also loses a waitlist position if ticket is not confirmed!

lechaps

I tried to book a trip to Kashmir through 2 companies with the same results, the card was blocked before it made it to my bank. Both companies could not manually enter the card. The two compnies were Thomas Cook India and MakeMyTrip

vishalgupta22

It's very common for portals in India to not accept foreign cards. I have even been to restaurants in India where my US cards were not accepted.

Your best bet may be to stop by a travel agent or try airlines website directly.

You can also try makemytrip"s US website.

aktchi

I have generally had good experience while using US-issued AMEX at MMT's India portal as well as Expedia.co.in . Without knowing the specifics of your case, I'd suggest changing the card type if you have more than one: Amex, MC, Visa.

SeeBuyFly

I have never had a problem using a physical card in India (assuming the business accepts credit cards, of course). Internet transactions are a different matter---many of my countrymen are poor, unemployed and net-savvy, and so there is a lot of fraud.

Indian credit cards have additional government-imposed safeguards for internet use that foreign credit cards don't have. Hence most foreign cards are not accepted. That's just how it is.

Now it would be nice if Indian web sites would make this clear. Instead they just say something uninformative on the lines of "Your transaction did not go through...". There is no point in trying again, Visa/MC will never go through. Sure, if you have AmEx, try that.

One place I was able to use my foreign card was amazon.in, but it's not clear to me that it is a purely Indian site; they recognized my amazon.com login.

vishalgupta22

I have tried amazon.in and it works for me too with my US login and payment. Snapdeal gave me a clear message saying foreign cards not allowed.

I had problems with a few merchants (physical visa card) in Bangalore who don't accept foreign credit cards. When the transaction failed they asked me if this was a non Indian card and confirmed they don't accept foreign cards.

Savage25

Saw a Bombay newspaper article yesterday that said https://www.irctc.co.in/ will finally be accepting non-Amex foreign credit cards ^