<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by bedelman:
I agree with Exmo that this is a big deal. (Thanks as always to GuyBetsy for the scoop.)
Do other Oneworld airlines do this? For purchases in all currencies other than USD/GBP? Or just some?
I realize this is awfully undocumented so hard to know. But the 2% difference -- on a many-thousand-dollar ticket -- could be enough to shift a purchase from one country to another. (Could make it worth going to Canada rather than buying in the US, etc.)
[This message has been edited by bedelman (edited 05-20-2003).]</font>
I recently bought 2 RTW MLONE tickets ex-Australia - set up the itinerary with the AA RTW desk in the U.S. but ticketed by the AA office in Sydney, priced in Australian dollars, charged to an Australian dollar Visa card at an Australian bank and collected from the AA Sydney office.
Tickets were charged in U.S dollars so got the "benefit" of AA doing the currency conversion plus the "benefit" of the bank charging a conversion fee.... net loss, a couple of hundred dollars.
The AA Sydney office explained that this was because all credit card charges are billed from the U.S. - apparently because AA "will not" or "cannot" give a "guarantee" related to its credit card charges (to whom and for what, I do not know). So "I'd like a credit for the overcharge please." "Sorry, can't do that - what you need to do is dispute the overcharge with the credit card company and they'll charge it back to us."
As I said in my subsequent letter to AA, what a ludicrous way to create extra work for me, AA and the credit card company.