We have been planning a family Europe trip for the summer. Punting on the ability to use our BA miles, the best price we found via Kayak was on a foreign carrier. I had read that European booking can be cheaper for identical flights, so I switched payment in EUR. The difference was astounding (almost 15%). Even with a transaction fee from your CC, you can be way ahead.
Here’s the skinny:
Flight for 5 in USD: $5,026.66
Flight for 5 in EUR: E3,667.60
An exchange rate currently of $1.158/E1 yields a price of $4,247.08 (plus CC fees - if applicable).
When they say you will never use Math, please send them to this thread
It’s also helpful (somewhat) on AirBnB. The USD/EUR conversion rate seems to be about 3.5% - 5% different there ($1.19 v $1.14/5 actual). Not sure that’s worth it, unless you can pay in Euros without a transaction fee.
The airline’s USD/EUR conversion rate was closer to $1.34, for comparison.
Anyone traveling to a foreign country should make sure they aren’t paying foreign currency transaction fees, what a disgusting ripoff. Capital One generally doesn’t charge them, I believe.
Very true, BUT, if you are making an internet transaction in a foreign currency, not all CCs will work (My Chase BA card, with no fees and a smart chip, would not work). My AMEX, however, would work.
It’s worth noting that sometimes the ‘do you want to pay in dollars’ thing (abroad) is a a scam. I’ll look out for the reverse of it that you’re mentioning, I have three trips coming up.
Interesting thread. I am just getting ready to book a trip to Champagne>Germany>ProWein and figured I would try this out. When I punched everything in, I was surprised to find my combination of flights cost 12% MORE (in dollars, when converted from the quoted Euro price) on the carrier’s local website than the same set of flights on the carrier’s US website quoted in dollars. I wonder why the discrepancy – I’d be surprised if disparities that big are simply managing their FX exposure…
While it didn’t work out favorably for me this time, I’ll certainly try this out again going forward, given how much I go back and forth…
After digging around on flyertalk, there are some folks taking this to the last decimal point and paying with the most advantageous currency at the time. They will use an online currency converter (like xe.com), find the greatest currency disparity and pay in that one.
Typically Amex exchange rates for euros are about a half penny higher than whatever you see quoted for that day. Mine has also stopped taking a 3% service fee for foreign transactions, which makes it as good a rate as an individual can get pretty much.
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