ksingh0311

Exactly. It's not the same as purchasing let's say, electronics items in USA vs. in the UK or Australia or wherever where the prices may be different because of customs duties, sales taxes etc.

It's a plane ticket that is being purchased on the internet. Why should the ticket price be different if I purchased a domestic (within US) UA ticket while sitting in a hotel room in London if I supply them with my domestic US credit card from the price if I supplied them with my UK credit card?

I would agree if the airline would charge fees for international currency exchange (but the credit card company would do that anyway), but a significantly more expensive price just because you supply a different billing address is just discrimination.

docbert

Orbitz/Expedia/etc.

That is all.

emcampbe

Yes, the OP could. Assuming that the OTA will sell the fare using a credit card from the country that it is billed to. I had this same problem with I think Travelocity probably 10 - 15 years ago - with only a Canadian credit card trying to book SEA - LAS. Travelocity.com refused to take my card with a Canadian address, and travelocity.ca wanted way more, I forget exactly but something like double the price.

This is how airlines price fares, and different airlines handle it differently. UA enforces this by billing card location. SQ, LH, etc. for example, will route you to the site local to the point of departure, no matter what billing address you use, and so you can't see whether it is cheaper or more expensive to book from a different locality. Plus, will be billed in local currency only. You need to go to another OTA from that place to find out if there is a different fare based on a different location. And often, those prices are way more expensive. For example, on Orbitz, looking for an ex-India flight on TG or SQ (IIRC), I found the prices were way more than booking through their own webites based in the country I was leaving. For example, on TG, the India-Thailand fares I was looking at would price in full Y only through US sites - and definitely more than double what I ended up paying through the Thai website paying in INR. Just the way it works.

This. Sometimes, one can be cheaper using a US card or sometimes, using a [insert name of country here] card. Just depends.

Why? Call it whatever you want, the practice is widely used in other industries too, not just airlines. Should Marriott/Hyatt take away the lower AAA rates I get for having that membership. Or advance purchase rates for everyone? Should movie theaters stop offering senior/child/student discounts? Should Domino's stop offering half price pizzas Monday - Wednesday (or whatever it is these days) because it discriminates against those who buy the same pizza on a Thursday or Friday?

Airlines do use it more, sure, however, as a private company, UA, other carriers, and other private companies have the right to price things as they wish, and to encourage purchases through lower prices how it wants to.There are other choices too.

While we're at it, be careful what you wish for. If price discrimination - revenue management, whatever you want to call it - goes away, so does your cheap airline ticket. It doesn't just affect where you are buying from. Get a good N, L or S fare for a trip this year? Those are based on factors such as one-way or roundtrip, length of trip, minimum stay, specific days/flights you are flying, demand, etc. So unless you want to be paying full Y fares for every trip, you might want to think twice about suggesting that price discrimination should be condemned.

mahasamatman

I guess you haven't been reading the thread. The location is not changing. All that's changing is the credit card being used.

TennisNoob

As another user has said, I'm quite surprised you haven't realized that Singpoare is going to get overcharged compared to it's cross borders/regional neighbors like Malaysia, Indonesia, and etc.

It's quite normal, unfortunately it happens

fastair

I am NOT an expert here, but I do believe it is a POS thing, and since the Information Age, it's how they enforce it. Like buying a car living in Cook County. Sure, I could drive less than 20 min in 3 different directions and be in different counties, an hour and I could be in 2 different states, but I pay sales tax based on where the car is registered (I think I do!). In this case sales tax is not based on where it's sold, it's just how they apply the rule. I think this is just how UA enforces this rule, point of sale on an electronic payment I. The I do age is "sold" by UA at your credit cards billing address, when sold on the internet. Just my theory, again, I'm no expert on this.


Anyone ever by a premium ticket ex CMB? Like most tools, if used properly, one can gain advantages, wielded by another, it can give them the advantage. Again, can't you (OP) but thru an agency there, have them "launder" your funds?

artvandalay

Au contraire mon ami. And I also read this from OP:

"In the end a US-based friend got the tickets issued using his credit card."

He not only changed cards, he enlisted the assistance of a friend to secure the ticket.

My point was that I am surprised that a UA 1K living in SIN hasn't had this happen before. And after re-reading his post, I still can't understand why he thinks this is discrimination by UA. Frustrating? okay. "Discrimination?'' Gimme a break.

kale73

The question isn't whether or not this is "discrimination," since it quite clearly is.
The question is whether this particular form of discrimination is "fair" or not.

cfischer

yup. Both have worked for me in the past in similar situations. Airlines play games but so can customers.

mduell

I don't think you understand the point of sale concept for airline tickets - changing the billing country changes the point of sale!

Changing the credit card to a different billing country is exactly changing the point of sale.

blug

Then what about the airfare of A-B-C being more expensive than B-C? That should be an even worse discrimination isn't it?

Mike Jacoubowsky

As someone pointed out, it's cheaper for Peruvians to fly than "foreigners" on their local airlines. In Africa, it's apparently also considerably-cheaper for locals and those "in the know" to buy fares directly from the airline than on-line.

And all over the world I've seen pretty wild variations in pricing for a given item, in various currencies. Basically up to twice in dollars what it would be in Yuan or whatever... far greater than any possible currency fluctuation would account for.

As pointed out, its capitalism, finding a way to get the most from those who don't have other options that are more competitive. Another way of saying all that the traffic will bear.

I suspect the differences used to be larger before the 'net took over, as comparisons were far more difficult.

As for what the "discrimination" is based upon, the CC is the only tool they have available. Well not really, they could also base it on the IP address of the computer, but that can be spoofed. My guess is that they likely try to do both.

If the lost revenue from people upset over higher prices (and not buying tickets) becomes great enough, it may offset the extra revenue from the pricing differential, and pricing might level out. But until that happens, this is little different from revenue management that sells the exact same seat and service on a given plane for wildly-different pricing.

ani90

There are also other factors other than simple capitalism. Laws are different in different countries and terms of sale are different. In particular taxation laws and levies for foreign exchange transactions can influence differential pricing of commodities in different countries. Also as the costs of operating a business (airline) are different in different countries, those in some countries may pay a premium for higher operating costs in their locality, independent of the value of the actual god being purchased.

docbert

For example, domestic flights in Australia have to include GST (10%) when they are purchased in Australia, but only when they are not purchased as a part of an international trip.

But if they are purchased outside of the US by a non-Australian resident, then they do NOT include GST.

If you go and price SYD-BNE on matrix.itasoftware.com with a point-of-sale of SYD then you'll see that it adds 10% for GST. But if you price the exact same flight with a point-of-sale of SFO then the price will be exactly the same (after currency conversion), but GST will NOT be added, giving an overall cheaper price.

Odds are that's not the exact reason for the OP's difference, but given that Singapore does have GST it's possible. Even if it's not, it's an example of why fares can be different for reasons you've probably never thought of.

catocony

What fare bucket did you get when pricing in US dollars vs. another currency? It could be that you got a W fare or something, but with the foreign credit card, you priced in at M.

If you want to talk about discrimination, we can go down memory lane and discuss how business travelers used to get bled dry on transcon flights. The Saturday stay, the two weeks in advance BS, there used to be a buttload of price fixing and gouging that we don't have much of anymore. Unless you count the concept of fare buckets in general, which is a direct form of price discrimination. 130 people sitting in the same seats in coach, and there are at least 20 different prices paid for the exact same seat.