American Airlines No Longer Takes This Country’s Currency

An American Airlines agent confirmed that the carrier will no longer accept Argentine pesos as a form of payment for travel.

American Airlines representatives reached for comment by Reuters confirmed that the world’s largest airline has suspended ticket sales in situations where Argentine pesos are offered as payment. Media outlets in Argentina report that the airline started refusing sales in Argentine currency this week.

“That’s the policy at this moment. It started two days ago,” an American Airlines ticket agent confirmed to Reuters. The agent told the news service that the move was spurred by difficulty converting Argentine pesos to U.S. dollars because of strict currency controls in the South American nation. Reuters reports that the new American Airlines policy will not affect tickets that have already been booked and for now, the company will continue to sell tickets in Argentina provided customers are able to offer a foreign credit card to complete the purchase.

American’s decision to suspend Argentine peso transactions comes a little more than a year after the airline raised the ire of officials in Argentina’s government by refusing to accept air travel reservations in the country if those reservations were made more than 90 days in advance. Company officials said at the time that the restriction was made necessary because of currency controls and dramatic inflation in Argentina that caused the airline to be stuck with millions in currency that could not be exchanged.

Government officials responded by accusing the airline of “insidious” attacks on Argentine sovereignty. Officials insist that the currency controls were put in place to prevent so-called “scrapping” — a scheme in which citizens buy airline tickets in an attempt to earn a better exchange rate through black market transactions.

[Photo: American Airlines]