Booking question...
 

Ok, this may seem like a stupid question, but take pity am a newbie here!

I couldn't find an answer in the search function so i thought id post.

When looking on various air fare sites (AA.com/CO.com etc) the US site always seems to offer the same deal as the UK site just for a much cheaper rate. Can i book on the US site paying US$ with my UK credit card and UK billing address???

If no, is there any way around this???

It seems stupid to have to pay £240 to fly MCO-LAX, when on the american site it's about $200!

Chris

This question probably wants to move to travelbuzz, but before it goes, I'll take a shot at answering the query.

The answer, in short, is no. The airlines segment the market to prevent us Brits from using our credit cards, with UK addresses on American websites.

That's nice of them. Lol.

Ah well, i guess it's high prices for me then! I did know one person who said there address was the Hilton NYC when booking on AA.com, everything went through ok. I just know that if i did that i would get caught out or something!

Cheers for the tips, if anyone else knows anything, please share...

Chris

I'm not sure that this is entirely correct (but then perhaps I'm straying into territory best described as "the answer, in long" ;) ).

I think that some US sites have access to fare buckets not available in the UK, e.g. Looking at KLM LHR-ATH at the weekend I was able to get a much cheaper flight on aa.com than on KLM's UK site.

That said, the same trick used to work with BA flights, but hasn't worked for me recently - perhaps tightened up as USA_flyer says.

That that said said, I've seen it said that you can get around this by calling BA's ticket office in the US, which has access to those buckets...

I trust that has sufficiently muddied the waters ;)

chris78cpr you could always do what I did and open a bank account in the USA...

As this isn't really MR booking related questions, but a general question, I will go ahead & move this to TravelBuzz.

Thanks!

bhatnasx
Mileage Run Moderator

I think it depends on the websites and you probably would have to give a try. Some of them require a US credit card, some other don't.
I have the same problem with the US NWA.com. I use the Asian NWA website (with a european credit card) which have similar prices than the US and it works fine.

If you can't book on the airlines website, you might want to check with travel websites like travelocity/ orbitz/ expedia, they usually have similar prices than airlines websites (but charge a booking fee). I know for a fact that Travelocity accepts non US credit card - I've done it a few months ago.

If this does not work either, try to book via a US based travel agent. Now that most of the tickets are electronically issued, there shouldn't be too much of trouble to get it "delivered" to you in the UK