HanBkk

I'm trying to buy a RT ticket from China to Korea. I'm using the Asiana US website. When entering flight search criteria, I have to choose either CNY or KRW as payment currency.
I select the flights and enter my information and come to the payment section. If I have selected CNY, then the only payment options are Chinese methods - Union Pay, Alipay, Wechat. If I've selected KRW, then payment methods are credit card issued in Korea, or UATP. I don't know what UATP is, but I've tried inputting credit card info there. It won't accept all the numbers for a Mastercard, and doesn't work with an Amex number there.
Is it possible to pay with a US card for a non US flight?

paperwastage

book through a travel agency/OTA then? you will still incur a foreign ccy transaction (and fx fee if your card charges fx fees)

ttuna3

Depending on whether or not you card charges the foreign transaction fees you won't have any issue making the charge only issue is to make sure that you choose the kind of card you're using. You'll be better off choosing KRW vice CNY since you';ll have a better choice of card types. I just bought a HND-ICN ticket using my US Amex and I've bought others using my VISA and MC from the US site even when it goes through the Japan or Korea sites. I've only had issues when I haven't made sure that my name matches the card exactly.

elliott44k

There are definitely payment options for cards not issued in Korea. Asiana always books flights using one of the local currencies of the places you're traveling in between

HanBkk

I finally bought the ticket, but it was much more difficult than it needed to be. I'll describe this in case anyone is looking for this information in the future. This payment situation must be specific to fights departing China.

I didn't want to use an OTA since all of them, including Ctrip, were showing a higher fare.
As mentioned above, if I choose KRW, the only options available were card issued in Korea which required selecting from a list of Korean banks or UATP. When selecting CNY, the only payment options were Union Pay, Alipay, and Wechat; with no option for credit cards. This contradicts the payment information section of the website which indicates CC are accepted for China

Since the US reservation office was closed, I called the Korean office. They told me they are unable to take cards issued outside of Korea, and suggested I call the China office. I called the China office, and the agent seemed surprised when she checked and the option for a credit card was unavailable. She put me on hold for a while to check with someone. She came back and told me that that function was previously there and she didn't know when or why it had been removed. She said that it might appear again in a few days but didn't know.

Rather than wait for the US office to open, I decided to use Alipay (forfeiting 5X Amex MR ��) . I was able to create the reservation on my computer, and then process the payment on my phone using the bar code from the reservation. But this being China, just as the transaction was completed on my phone, my internet connection dropped. The website was showing that payment had failed and no ticket had been issued, even though I received a confirmation from Alipay. I called the China office again. The previous agent I talked to had great English skills, but this agent and I had great difficulty communicating with each other. Just spelling my name and giving flight information was a task. She finally told me that she would submit a request for the payment to be checked and I should get a confirmation within 3 hours.

Thankfully, I received the e-ticket in my email about 20 minutes later.

elliott44k

Rough, such a strange situation.

I may have some travel to China from Korea in the future, so this is good to know even though I have Korean banking

wpcoe

Last year I booked a BKK-ICN-LAX-ICN-BKK on the OZ web site, and it would not accept my US-based VISA card. I called the BKK office and they could not accept it over the phone, but would accept it if I went into Bangkok to the city ticket office. I live a few hours away from Bangkok and decided to not make a trip just to buy the ticket. Expedia had the same flights for the same fare, so I booked with them (and paid with the US VISA card) and held my breath that there would be no schedule changes or IRROPS that would require me to deal further with Expedia.

jon503

How strange and annoying. I use a Korean card now, but just a few years ago I was using a foreign credit card without any issues on both the Korea and Europe sites. The website remains the single biggest issue with OZ...

Gasolin

They changed again? I used to use the AMEX to buy JFK / ICN for example, is that gone now?
Strange because I could swear on the Korean site, I could use the Asiana Bank of America VISA card for domestic flight. I'll never understand Asiana...

tookay

Interesting to see your experience as I was searching through threads here regarding a problem I encountered with trying to book and ticket an OZ trip.

Using the flyasiana.com site, I entered all my reservation information, selected seats, got all the way to the end of the process, clicked "Pay" and I received a popup saying that the reservation could not be completed and I must contact a reservations office or the "internet desk". I never got to the point of entering credit card information. There was no contact for the "internet desk", so I called reservations in BKK. As with your experience, they would not accept a credit card by phone and only at their office. Problem is, I am in Chiang Mai. The second suggestion was a bank transfer as archaic as that sounds. I do not maintain a large cash balance in my local account and an international transfer would take days being costly. The third suggestion was to message "Voice of the Customer" from the website, which I did and two days later received a message with the same two payment suggestions. I have flown OZ perhaps ten times in the past and this was never a problem, so I am unclear what the issue is now.

Result: It is impossible to book and pay for a ticket using a credit card either by the OZ website or by phone. What an incredible fail and it beggars belief that a major international airline follows this obtuse payment policy and procedure. I wonder how much revenue they are losing as a result. I can personally vouch for two tickets today in lieu of OZ, for which I booked and paid with ease with NH.

wpcoe

Hmmm, I'll keep that in mind if the situation arises again. That was not mentioned as an option, though I'm not surprised it's available. I wouldn't mind doing a local bank transfer to pay, though it would mean sacrificing a few thousand MileagePlus miles by not using my MP VISA card.