The part, to which you replied here, was written to support your reply on sokolov's comment, that some card issuers just care about currency, not country.
This is not how DCC works. The merchant typically doesn't have accounts in multiple currencies. Of course Amazon will have bank accounts in many countries and I don't really know how they work internally. But if it was a small company, they would just get the £10 minus their fees, whether you choose to pay €12.60 or £10. They don't ever see that you chose to pay in euros and they don't get any euros into their bank account. The bank may share some of the profits from DCC with them though - this is one way banks get merchants to sign up to DCC.
Pretty much my point exactly! I did say it gets converted before it clears with the merchant's bank. But the merchant publishes their own prices, so if they charge 12.60€ instead of 12,35€, then they won't get 10GBP, they'll get more (how won't they get more?)! Amazon not only handles payments in different currencies, but they even issue receipts with the VAT of many countries (within Europe they have bureaus in various countries, so they even pay the appropriate VAT to the specific government of the receipient's country)! But that's certainly an exemption. Still, the UK website wants to get paid in GBP, the german/french/spanish etc. in EUR etc., or they'll add their fee on the conversion rate (with which they'll get paid more).
Aegean doesn't have any currency risk! They only get paid in euros and the bank takes all the risk (but not really, because the banks operate DCC in both directions with merchants all over the world). There is a risk to you the consumer, but unless you trade currency options there is not really any way to remove this risk.
LHR-ATH 5th April 1215: light fare is €299.09.
XE.com rate is £248.13.
Revolut rate is £249.51 (but it's the weekend, will be less on weekdays).
Visa exchange rate is £250.34.
Mastercard exchange rate is £250.38.
However you won't know the rate for your transaction in advance, as the rate that applies will be determined 1-2 days after you actually pay.
(merged with a further ahead part of the post)
If I change the currency to GBP on A3's website, the price becomes £262.16!!
The only reason to is pay £262.16 today is because you think it might become £266 by the time the transaction is processed. But if you are so sure the rate will move in this way, you should trade forex. It might just as likely go to £253 tomorrow.
I'd love to hear how that's supposed to work. I know the last "red" part about the +1-2 days is true, but then how is Aegean's pricing completely risk-free? If the conversion rates change significantly, say 10-20%, which is of course extreme, but perhaps look at some currencies like the turkish Lira a few months ago (!), then the bank will credit Aegean's account with 10-20% less Euros than what the price and xe.com rate at the time of booking originally lead Aegean to expect. If "you don't know" the rate in advance then Aegean or any merchant also won't "know it"! Which is exactly why these "DCC" prices are higher than paying in the merchant's currency, in which case indeed only your bank is involved in the risk-taking part of the transaction (but like you said, they're the "house", so long-term they always win).
Even if your card charges an extra 3%, the £250.38 Mastercard rate becomes £257.89 which is still cheaper. With a 0% fee card, why would I pay £12 more?
Yes, it
is and always will be cheaper! Never doubted that and this is exactly how I do it, how you do it and probably how 90% of FT's members do it. But, like I said, I can imagine someone opting to pay those extra 4.27 Pounds or 5 Euros, if they want to avoid losing time figuring out how much is each ticket in their own currency (checking for fares on various dates can be a pain, when having to manually calculate all those prices, of course there's probably a browser add-on that does that for you, but, again, I am talking about a minority here) or having to verify all those charges with their bank statements, causing them to lose more time (how much of your own time would you value at 5 EUR?
). So people who care won't pay more, people who don't care or who would otherwise lose that $$ in the form of lost time, might pay more. I am confident, that there is a market for such offerings and I stand by my opinion (which I didn't express so directly before), that the "we know our stuff" people shouldn't get "tricked" by such options into paying more in the first place.
Anyway, apart from the "no risk for Aegean" part I think we agree on basically everything.