tourist rate when paying in ARS on booking.com
 

If I make a reservation on booking.com and choose to pay in ARS will I then get the favorable currency rate a few weeks later in the form of a rebate? The terminology is slightly confusing when reading about the tourist rate. It says "in Argentina." I am not making the reservation in Argentina. I am prepaying now in ARS on booking.com

DO NOT prepay, because the charge will be processed by booking in u$s, you need to make a reservation with the option pay at the hotel, that way it will cost you less, because the price in dollars in Argentina will be converted in pesos (ARS) at the official rate (365), then you pay with your CC and you will take advantage of the tourist CC rate.

I am confused because on booking I have the option to pay in ARS

The ARS price you will see in booking.com is the dollars converted to pesos at the official rate, but if you pay directly to booking, they will still charge you the amount in dollars (more expensive) than paying in Argentina. Another option is check the same places on almundo or despegar, their charge should be processed in pesos in Argentina. Keep in mind the most important part is the POS (Point of Sale), for booking is USA, that's why when you check on booking.com, you may see a 100 dollar hotel, which should show you 36,500 ARS per night (if you select Argentina), but if you prepaid the hotel it will be charged 100 dollars, while a reservation will be 100 dollar but will be converted to ARS when you check in, let say's still the same exchange rate (is locked until December), 36,5k ARS will be less than 40 dollars when you pay in Argentina using your CC.

I have a friend who is traveling to BSAS
 

Curious to know what is the best practice these days for booking hotels (someone whom would be making the bookings from the USA). I guess the narrowing of the blue vs official and the CCs tied to the MEP, this scheme is not as productive as it once was..

Additionally, I also believe there was a waiver of taxes at one time for USA and other foreign passport holders. (I thought you needed to pay with a card and not ARS?) However, I am unsure.

VAT is waived by hotels for non Argentine residents paying with an international non Argentine credit card.

Invoices will be raised in ARS - if you have agreed a USD rate this will be converted to ARS at the official rate on the date that invoice is raised..

This is still the case I understand

For now the best practice is prepaid in Pesos on Despegar, Almundo or any AR OTA that will process the payment in Pesos. Most hotels have the rate at a fixed price in Dollars, but is converted to Pesos at the official Rate. Before the new President, the official was locked at $365, it was a great deal because if you use your CC you were getting a rate of 850~920, which means a $100 dollar hotel rate per night was 36.5k ARS after the conversion and paying with a CC (at 850 rate), you ended up paying $43 dollars or less. Unfortunately last week the government raised the official rate to 800 ARS, which is very similar to the rate that VISA/MC/Amex use.

Those who had a reservation before the increase for an upcoming trip, you will see a big jump in price when they check-in.

Indeed. I'm planning a 2024 trip and I messaged a few hotels for which I have USD-denominated rates to understand how the devaluation will affect those reservations. What I'm hearing across the board is that they are sticking with the prior rates, which would result in an out-of-pocket of roughly double what I had expected. As a result, I'm canceling just about everything I've got and re-booking, generally either at other hotels with ARS-denominated rates or at Airbnbs, which are now price-competitive in a way that they were not before.

Hi - I just want to clarify how hotel bookings work. I have a reservation at a hotel in Argentina, with the price quoted in USD. The hotel says they'll then convert that price to pesos at the official rate when they charge me. I'll then use my US-issued credit card to pay that amount in pesos, which will then be converted back to USD at a much more favorable (for me) exchange rate. So, with the current official rate of around 900:1 and a blue/MEP rate closer to 1400:1, that means I'm going to save something like 40% on the hotel's quoted USD price - is that correct?

Thanks in advance for confirming my understanding or telling me that I'm completely confused!

Hi, I'm about to travel to Argentina for the first time. Checking hotel prices and they seem very high in BA. I read this thread but still confused. Is there still some exchange rate / payment trick to get lower final rate/charge for a hotel booking? TIA

Yes, it all depends of the difference between Official Rate vs MEP/CC Rate.

Current Official Rate (preciodolar.com.ar) 1u$s= 995.60$ (venta/sell)
Current CC like VISA 1uSs=1,144 AR$ https://usa.visa.com/support/consume...alculator.html

If you make a reservation on booking.com and it come back like $200 per night, then the Hotel will convert those $200 to Official Rate= 199,000 AR$, and if you pay with a CC like Visa, then will be 199,000/1,144=$173.95. There is not big difference at this moment because the difference between both is less than 15%, but two months ago (or so) it was like %35% discount.

If you are non resident and pay with an international c/c . you will not pay VAT.

Are you checking with booking.com or a similar site? If so, that's your problem.

Make the reservation directly with the hotel. It will come out far better for you.