Originally Posted by
stevenshev
I think it is you who do not understand the concept of POS for airline tickets.
POS is exactly that. If you walk into a travel agent in NYC with a US or foreign credit card, your POS is NYC.
If you walk into a travel agent in London with a US or UK credit card, your POS is still London.
United's website/billing system is just stupid, and changes POS based on billing address - that does not mean that that is how it is supposed to work.
Problem is we generally don't walk into travel agents anymore so makes it more blurred where the "point of sale'' should be and what taxation and levies to pay. When you buy goods in one country when present in another, whose tax rules do you follow? Do you pay taxes and follow laws based on where you live or where the goods are being sold? If I live in Texas and order goods from New Jersey it is same website and technically same point of sale as someone who lives in California or in Bhutan - do we all pay the same tax? If all residents of singapore buy their tickets through a US website and pay directly in USD bypassing the Singapore system, is the country (Singapore) losing revenue it should get on trade done in its territory, or on sales of foreign goods and services. How then does Singapore levy its residents for purchase of foreign goods? How will Bhutan collect taxes and levies from large international corporations doing internet trade with its nationals if point of sale is in BOS?
These issues are not as simple as walking into a travel agent in New York. The issue per se is not about credit cards but about internet trade across international boundaries - the CC address is just one tool used by some to force local point of sale but there are others.