whackedspinach

I'm looking into purchasing a last minute ticket from PIT to ORD on AA for this weekend. The cost is $585, and all tickets are listed as refundable. I'd rather pay a lower price for a non-refundable ticket. On a whim, I used AA's China site in English and found that they list non-refundable tickets for the same flight at ~$290 (but in CNY, of course). Is there any problem with using another currency to book a non-refundable fare?

danbrew

No direct experience with AA and this particular situation, BUT... you *MAY* find that non-US sites require a credit card issued in the country/currency of the country's site you are using. I dunno. I had a problem using American credit cards on the Russian Rail System website a few years ago. I'd say try it and see what happens. I'm guessing somebody else will chime in on whether this works - bottom line, if they sell you a ticket and you've got a paper (PDF) boarding pass (I wouldn't rely upon an electronic boarding pass), what are they gonna say at the gate? Sorry, you can't get on the plane?

Well, yeah, maybe they would say that. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to call AA and ask 'em. But maybe call the English line in China and ask them.

ckx2

Unfortunately AA requires you to have a US issued Credit Card with a US address in order to pay on their international websites. It's an unfortunate, IT caused scenario as of January 1st, 2017 but could play in favor for OP.

Djokison

aacar

I'm pretty sure the chinese site is showing you the prices for each leg separately...total cost is still ~$580.

skywardhunter

if it is indeed cheaper but AA website is an issue maybe you'll be able to purchase via an overseas OTA, isn't ctrip chinese?

ckx2

Try to complete a booking on Hong Kong, Japanese or Singaporean website. The default credit card country is United States and cannot be changed (site will crash). Intended behavior. The booking does require a US issued credit card. I'm not sure if it's different for the European websites, but for Asia this is the current behavior. I've complained four times to AA now and other than 10k miles for my inconvenience, they don't have a solution.

whackedspinach

You are correct. The US/UK site shows the total cost of the flight when you pick a leg, whereas China/Ireland/Italy show the cost per-leg. That's confusing.

Djokison

Ah, you mean Asia. For the international sites I use (European and Caribbean), they require local credit cards.
That certainly is an odd (and annoying) glitch, though.

Steve M

AA has flights to/from both Japan and Hong Kong, and the US. Are you saying that nobody that lives there and wants to buy an AA ticket over web directly from AA can do so, unless they happen to have a US-issued credit card? That seems very hard to believe. What may be happening is that the website is forcing the use of a US-issued credit card if the purchaser's IP address is in the US, regardless of which country's AA site, flight origination, or currency is used.

Often1

AA displays the cost of the outbound you select and the cheapest segment on the date of return. When you select the outbound, the website takes you to the return date and you can then pick the return segment and it will price according to the flight.

This is only confusing if you are comparing two different websites in two currencies intended for customers in two different markets, e.g. countries.