karung99

These Airport car Rental charges are paid for new building to host all the rentals car co like in LAS, and also paid for air port pick up and deliver as well, so it is not the same.

ozstamps

I had TACA change our tickets from Quito, so instead on a stopover yesterday in downtown BA, we just transited in EZE to IAD/Sydney and the Gov't missed their $US200. And the tax on anything else we spent.

As an example of how many folks are doing this I checked into our UA flights EZE/USA/SYD in the UA Red Carpet Club, as of course I could not get out of the airside transit.

They asked if we had bags and I said yes. Without even asking for help, the UA RCC agent asked me for the bag tags from TACA, and they organised UA staff to collect them, and check them in on UA, and bought me the bag checks in the club.

They said this is now SOP as so many are transiting and do not want to run the gauntlet of Bureaucrats, and argue if they need to pay the tax when only exiting to check bags.

Pretty silly if folks do that more often.

A good friend of mine is MD of one of the largest retail TA's in Argentina.

We had planned to have lunch with him, and I told him why we were skipping this time and got this rely -

"Yes, January 1st Ozzies, Gringos and Canadians get the reciprocity tax... law was around for two years but not in place until our govnt really needed the cash.

As you say it will not dissapear as it is A LOT OF MONEY and it's hurt our business as our main two markets our North America and all Down Under.

Well we will have to meet somewhere else then. keep me posted when you come down to latin america, I travel frequently to Brasil, Chile, Peru so we might just be in the same town! "

So not sure if that is "hard" enough evidence for Alex, but here is a major TA already saying after 4 months it has hurt his business, which clearly means there are less tourists coming. @:-)

Glen

Gaucho100K

Sorry Glen... but no.

I feel for your TA friend but the overall long term impact of this fee is negligible. Yes, some short term fallout with all the press coverage but in a few weeks this will be business as usual and the tourism numbers in Argentina will continue to grow... its going to take something a lot more relevant than this fee to stop folks from coming. On the specific issue of Ozland tourists... check out the loads on the Qantas flights.. they went from 2 or 3 times a week service to daily service.... that is an interesting figure in itself, or...?

3544quebec

It may be an interesting figure in itself but according to the Qantas booking engine they are continuing at 3 flights a week. Do you have some more reputable source?

ozstamps

The QF flight are such a roaring success they are selling tickets for under $A1000 RT inc all taxes, and still not filling them.

That tells you what a huge hit they have been.

QF have been seriously hammered on the juicy USA route via the DL and Virgin new players from late 2009, and are getting killed on Europe, so have some spare planes to test out to routes like EZE.

They'll vanish, and hand it back to LAN in a heartbeat when the $US100 a person PER transit reality sinks in on the grapevine. This is a nasty tax folks take a while to hear about.

Seeing near all pax on QF need to pay it, EZE is a Death Route. @:-)

Gaucho100K

Wirelessly posted (Nokia N97 / Palm TX: Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.4; Series60/5.0 NokiaN97-3/12.2.024; Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1; en-us) AppleWebKit/525 (KHTML, like Gecko) BrowserNG7.1.12344)

Thanks for the correction.... I was told that they had daily service by someone that came over on that flight last week... guess he was ill-informed.

HIDDY

Loads have been very good for the QF flight since it started, our flight in J was full and that was in the off season.
I wish you would tell me where you can get those cheap fares from....all I can find are +Ł1000 fares in economy.

The tax is having very little if any effect on loads.....you do seem to be on a mission regarding this tax don't you? Oh and Travel agents are just like farmers......they are always moaning about something.

ozstamps

So if one flies into MVD and catches the short ferry to BA from Colonia, there is no $131 tax?

And what about border crossing into Iguassu from Brazil?

It is *ONLY* EZE entries they are leeching this from I understand?

HIDDY

Indeed you can.

For all that you would save - highly unlikely - I don't see the point unless you really want to see Montevideo/Colonia.

3544quebec

I just flew GIG-MVD-AEP yesterday and on checking in with Pluna in GIG I enquired if visas on arrival were available for Australians travelling to Uruguay as whenever I´ve checked in the past Australians required a $US65 visa to visit Uruguay. The check-in agent looked it up on his system and told me that for stays up to 90 days no visa was required. Got me thinking that perhaps the only reason Argentina brought in the Reciprocity Fee for Australians was because the Uruguayans had cancelled it

For all my well-documented dislike for the Fee and my intention to avoid it whenever possible, there is no disputing that BA is really one of my favourite cities on the planet - I hope there remain ways to avoid the Fee because I would hate to avoid BA. One thing though that I don´t understand - why does BA have the surliest waiters in the world? Lunched at Mirasol today and by god they are unfriendly/indifferent!

Mr. Bean

I agree with both your points. I haven't spent a lot of time dining around in BA, but the few times I did, I wondered if I was doing something wrong with my food.

HIDDY

Interesting obsevation.

I would say it's a different style they have rather than them being surly on purpose. Most are professional waiters unlike the student types working part time at it in the UK.
They get the job done without the niceties.

WillTravel

Do these waiters act differently towards women, then? I can't remember any surly waiters in BA, but perhaps I was oblivious. Or maybe it only happens at higher price points than I tried.

HIDDY

Considering most Argentine men they think they are Gods gift to women it wouldn't surprise me.

Heldur

Hello first post.

I am an Australian travelling with my Ecuadorian wife to Australia for a month. We are flying TACA quito-lima-buenos Aires EZE then Aerolineas Argentinas BA - Sydney return.
When we arrive in BA we need to transfer our bags from the TACA flight to the AR flight and check-inwith AR. Even though we will be in transit and only staying at the airport will I have to pay the reciprocity fee? or can I arrange to have my bags transferred so I do not have to pass through immigration?
According to Aerolineas in Australia on the return flight at least I will have to collect my bags myself becasue they do not have an agreement with TACA.
So does this automatically mean I will need to pay reciprocity fee?

That what I seem to be gathering from this thread?