Originally Posted by
wideman
the obvious way (to me) of showing the US$ price would be to get the source price (ZAR) and convert to US$ by today's exchange rate. That doesn't seem to be the case here.
Airlines use the IATA-mandated rate of exchange (IROE) and not the market spot rate for currency conversions. IATA's interbank rate is based on an average rate observed over a period of five working days taken up until the 10th of each month. This is to ensure that sub-weekly spikes in the currency do not unfairly affect the price, because inter-airline and travel agent clearing does not happen immediately but rather is deferred. The rate calculation is available for purchase here:
http://www.iata.org/publications/Pages/iroe.aspx
Unfortunately I do not have access to the IATA rate. But looking at the rough market spot rate back on the 5th-10th of May, that conversion (67880 ZAR = 4410 USD) looks about right. Actually, that is not very different from the rate at the moment, 67880 is 4343 USD. Whoever is offering you over 5500 USD for 67880 ZAR, sell your ZAR now and worry about airline tickets later!
The 0 ZAR rate is a known bug in the fare distribution system, as far as I can tell it is an integer overflow. Unfortunately you just have to ignore it.
(The ZAR price is key for an ex-JNB RTW. In order to take advantage of the very low price for an ex-JNB RTW, the ticket must be issued in South Africa and priced in ZAR.)
It is not necessary to price your *ONEx itinerary in the local currency, it is only necessary that an office in the country of origin sell the fare. If they wish to price it in USD under the IATA-mandated conversion rate, instead of in the local currency, that is up to them.