oliver2002

I always bought any SK ticket from SAS USA to avoid the 'service' fee, even for domestic tickets. Earlier the availability for regional flights in lower booking classes was better with SAS US, but Amadeus Altea has fixed that loophole.

SusanDK

Good to know, thanks!

nacho

If you buy it from SAS USA, what currency will they bill you in?

nacho

Wow I didn't know that, but the problem is that if I'm flying from CPH, it will make sense to use DKK as the billing currency, right?

gnaget

Airlines generally use a "good" interbank rate. The only reason that you would want DKK is because your CC might take several % for the exchange.

Fortunately, I have a US credit card that uses interbank rate and no % fee.

Re the comment about booking with UA ex CPH. That's definitely not the case if you use united.com. Always quote you in USD.

p.s. It says "Please select your location or where you receive credit card billing statements to see pricing in your local currency." on UA's website at the drop-down to select country. It's the same for most airlines. I just purchased IST-CPH one way on UA's website in USD. That way I avoided silly "processing fees" that I would have gotten on the TK site and the fare was quoted in USD. Not as a codeshare ticket, BTW.

nacho

I used to the possibility for buying ticket at the DK site vs SE site and it always ends up cheaper to buy it in DKK vs SEK.

The weird thing is that when I use a card that has 0% fee it still ends up the same as those who has fees.

gnaget

Probably the no fee bank doesn't give you an interbank rate? They may not have a "fee" but it is baked into their exchange rate.

oliver2002

They charge in USD. I normally use http://www.oanda.com/lang/de/currency/converter/ to convert the USD rate into € and add the 2-3% interbank rate using a setting there.

WGTN

Slightly OT, do you also get 24h cancellation via the US website?

oliver2002

Yes, its the same booking engine.

Tango Alpha

But regarding the new credit card fee – I suppose it will be related to the issuing country of the credit card, not the web domain extension???

(so a Danish Mastercard will get a 1,8 % fee when paying at sas.se and a Swedish issued one will get no fee at sas.dk).

Or what?

nacho

My guess is that they might do it like LH - based on where you will be flying from (which is bad for people living in Sweden but ex CPH), otherwise all Scandinavian will be using sas.se since there is no fee for using CC

I doubt that you can use a Swedish card without a fee on sas.dk - foreign cards are charged a fee of 5% in Denmark.

gnaget

No, they definitely don't add 2-3%. Like I said, it's pretty much the interbank rate that you find on oanda.com.

Let's take an example. ARN-CPH one way next week. USD 127.99 on the US site and SEK 870 plus SEK 30 fee = SEK 900. So for this cheap ticket you are paying 3.5% service fee but let's focus on the base fare.

The current bid/ask according to my online broker is 6.778/6.784. The recent trade was 6.8043. According to Oanda the average ask for the 24 hr period ending 22:00 UTC Aug 1 was 6.78503. That equals SEK 868.42, which is less than 870. So, it's clear that SAS is using something very close to the interbank rate (not plus minus X%) for the USD fares. The USD has been weakening over the last few days so the slightly lower cost in USD reflects that SAS is slightly behind in adjusting the exchange rate. With a strengthening USD you will probably find the SEK price to be slightly lower.

I checked this several years ago and so it remains the same with SAS. I did the same exercise when buying a RTW ex Japan via *A (effectively LH). Here a few % equals a few hundred USD. The fare is in JPY but the *A price quoted in USD (select country of residence) was spot on the interbank. And again a JPY purchaser is hit with a 4000 or 5000 yen service fee while it is USD 20 for a USD purchase.

gnaget

I think you are extrapolating rotten business practices by typically small Danish businesses. 5% seems a lot. I think that I have seen 3%.

But if you go to a place like the Hilton then there is no credit card fee. And I am pretty sure that sas.dk is not going to charge you a CC fee.

The next time in CPH I was thinking of going to eat at Soelleroed Kro. On their website it warns that they charge a fee for credit cards (not just foreign). This is one of the most expensive restaurants in DK and they want to nickel and dime their customers?

I have never seen this practice elsewhere in the world. It's really petty.

Here's an article discussing that is banned elsewhere in the EU:

http://www.scancomark.se/Market/How-...n-Denmark.html

p.s. The best way to handle this is to view CC fees as a cost of doing business then offer a discount for cash.

oliver2002

You misunderstood me. My € credit card charges 2-3% extra on the USD, so when I compare a ticket on sas.se, sas.de and sas USA, I fire up oanda to have the final € price it would cost me.