AC Currency Conversion "Hacks"
 

Has anyone experimented with the AC website to see if certain fares are cheaper in different currencies? For example, where a fare might be $500 Canadian, but only 150 sterling pounds, and hence cheaper to book in sterling?

What other currencies does AC accept? Is it just US/CAN/UK? In the old days with Continental you could make off like a bandit buying Venezualan Bolivars on the black market and paying CO directly in Bolivars - though they stopped allowing this about a year before the merger. In that case though the discount was that due to the black market transaction as opposed to some sort of mistake on the CO website. Another similar, though not completely analogous example, is AVIS website, where I found that it was 30% cheaper to book a one way rental from LGA to HPN by choosing Canada as country of residence, though it was still priced in US dollars.

And another example, though again not quite analogous, was a couple years ago if you started off a TPAC trip at LAX and finished in Canada (i.e. multi-city instead of roundtrip), it forgot to charge you the fuel surcharge - which is why I believe there must be a way to take advantage of currency conversion, if for no other reason than an AC it-fail.

Can one of you nerds (I mean that lovingly) experiment and report back? :D

I believe they use some IATA exchange rate, which gets updated once a week. Based upon some proper rate the previous week.

So yes, there can be differences. In both directions.

Well to know about the Bolivar black market and Continentals back door is pretty nerdish to begin with :D

I have experimented with AC's US/CAD conversion and found that AC has factored in an additional 2-3% on top of the exchange rate, which can be a savings if you can purchase tickets on their US website using a no forex CC.

In some cases the savings can be even larger I got 186 fare on their US website, when the Canadian wanted 226, but this is rare.

however the issue comes down to insurance (if you're using a CC that offers that). Canadian CC that don't have forex fees often don't have the travel insurance, and if you used a CC that didn't, you would have to pay forex, and I'm not sure the insurance companies would honour your claim since you are changing the country of residence, as that would amount to fraud.

PMUA's website on the other hand had significant savings on their Canadian website for codeshare flights on AC Metal, (some cases 50%) and I took advantage of that as often as I could. Margarita Girl had a post on that back in the day as well.

Expedia.ca is also pretty good at fiinding USD fares matched in CAD funds. Especially on other star partners (like US Airways) that don't have a Canadian website.

Two legendary mistake fares are based on this.

Travelocity got their XPF:USD conversion ratio wrong by two orders of magnitude, so tickets originating in Tahiti went on sale (back in 2005).

Numerous airlines didn't implement the IATA memo describing the floating of the Myanmar Kyat, and consequently, fares based on the fixed MMK:USD rate were quite reasonably priced post-devaluation (last year).

There have been some great mileage runs using forex....alas not on AC.