Originally Posted by
SK AAR
You should always be suspecious of stores/shops with goods priced in other currency than the domestic currency of the shop - most likely there will be some kind of currency conversion at some stage and you will loose on it for sure. Why would you even consider buying stuff in the airport? - way too expensive compared to what you pay elsewhere.
Anyway, most likely the stores will only be able to charge your credit card in Liras (not USD or EUR) so they need to convert to Lira (the exchange rate used is obviously at their discretion...)
Because it's duty free....and the brand name stuff at IST is some of the cheapest you'll find in Europe.
Stores in Istanbul are of course capable of running the transaction in euros. My hotel was quoted in euros and my credit card was charged in euros. It is actually quite common for duty free shops to charge in a hard currency instead of the local currency. The prices at Nairobi airport were in dollars instead of shillings; at Delhi they were also in dollars instead of rupees. I used my credit card in those places and was charged in dollars.