FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Are all BA tickets billed from the UK? [A question about CC foreign transaction fees]
Thread: Are all BA tickets billed from the UK? [A question about CC foreign transaction fees]
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Old Jul 5, 2009 | 10:13 pm
  #3  
Urban Sun
15 Years on Site
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Scotland, UK
Posts: 333
I can sympathize with BA on this one.

I am CEO of a UK internet firm and we have a lot of clients in the United States who we bill in USD. Until last year they were not charged any foreign transaction fee as the transaction was billed in the same currency as their card, USD. Last year though some clients started seeing a foreign transaction fee appear on their cards.

It seems like nothing more than a complete scam to me. I can understand a foreign transaction fee being levied if the charge is in a different currency to the card but in the case here with BA and in our case it is not. No currency conversion is being done.

Some of our customers got pretty upset with us as they thought we were hitting them with this charge. When they researched it though they found their bank had sent them an "updated terms and conditions" booklet that went to around 20 pages and within that this new charge was mentioned.

We have only seen MasterCard and Visa doing this and not Amex. Amex appear to only charge a foreign transaction fee if the actual charge is in a different currency to the card, which is fair enough I guess.
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