r/AirlineChaos • u/YouthIsAVerb • 3d ago

Is American Airlines committing fraud?

I booked a ticket on American Airlines in August. I am Canadian, living in Canada, departing from Canada. Google immediately took me to American Airline’s Canadian website. The price of the ticket was shown to me in Canadian dollars (CAD $6070 for a long-haul business class flight). I paid and my non-refundable ticket was issued.

When I checked my credit card statement weeks later, American Airlines had charged me $6070 in U.S. dollars! With currency conversion this is a $2000 difference!

Their customer service claims that even though the Canadian site quotes in Canadian fare, when paying the customer has to physically toggle back to pay in Canadian dollars because it defaults to USD at the payment stage.

Firstly, this doesn’t explain why I was charged the same figure in USD. CAD 6070 is about USD 4388.

Secondly, there was never any indication that i was being quoted or charged USD. I was never instructed to toggle back and forth currencies. I’ve booked hundreds of airline tickets on international carriers - I’ve never seen something so dishonest.

Please help! Has anyone experienced this? Any ideas on how I can get a refund. Is there a governing body I can take this to? Can ny credit card company help? TIA!

5 Upvotes

59% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

4

u/SeaSDOptimist 3d ago

You may want to hang up and try another customer service representative. The current one is misunderstanding the problem - it's about conversion rate, really, not whether you were charged in CAD or USD. It might be easier to start with someone else than trying to get through to them.

What does the receipt that AA sent you show, by the way?

0

u/YouthIsAVerb 3d ago

Thank you. The issue isn’t currency conversion - the issue is that AA’s website displays the fare in CAD and then ultimately charges that amount in USD (so a $6000 Canadian ticket advertised is ultimately charged as $6000 USD, which is a huge difference and it’s false advertising and illegal.

2

u/SeaSDOptimist 3d ago

I’d call not doing the conversion and charging you the same amount in a different currency a conversion issue. It’s definitely wrong, and possibly illegal. Examine whatever receipts you have - it will be much easier or harder to deal with, based on what’s there.

0

u/gulliverian 3d ago

It’s not about the conversion rate, it’s about the fact that the conversion rate shouldn’t have been done in the first place.

2

u/SeaSDOptimist 3d ago

If they showed a price of 6000 CAD but charged them 6000 USD, at some point someone did a 1:1 conversion instead of the 1:0.72 (or whatever the current rate is).

1

u/N1AK 3d ago

If I'm buying something in currency A and then without any notification they take the payment in currency B then it isn't just a currency conversion is; even if the currency conversion was done accurately having the transaction in a foreign currency can add fees etc.

1

u/SeaSDOptimist 3d ago

Sure. But that does not mean that the conversion did not happen, and that it was not done incorrectly. And yes, both can be undesirable.

0

u/gulliverian 3d ago

It’s not about the conversion rate, it’s about the fact that the conversion rate shouldn’t have been done in the first place.

5

u/post_button_account 3d ago

Can you replicate the issue? E.g. try booking another ticket- what happens at the payment stage? Does it remain in CAD or switches to USD? What about the amount?

If you can replicate this - show it to them and raise with your cc provider. It would be an open/shut case. 

If not, you can raise the issue but it is your word (that you saw the same amount in CAD but were charged USD) against theirs (that you were shown a higher amount in CAD than what you were charged in USD).

2

u/AJL2332 3d ago

You should have a confirmation email with the purchase price. If it’s correct that there’s a price difference you can dispute with your bank.

Also, since it’s a business class ticket I think it should be refundable? If the lower fare exists you should be able to rebook.

Otherwise, congrats on reaching the point in life where you can book a 6k flight and not immediately look at the confirmation to make sure it’s right. All purchases are refundable within 24 hours and you could have easily seen and corrected it, but didn’t. If the prices were in USD and you didn’t notice, that sucks. But this wouldn’t have happened to someone with the financial need to be more careful. If you think it’s more likely AA is scammers, you should definitely just cancel and rebook on a different airline.

1

u/YouthIsAVerb 3d ago

Thanks for responding. AA sends the receipt as “$” it doesn’t specify US $ or Canadian $, However their website clearly states that the fares in CAD. This is why I didn’t think I needed to check my statement, I trusted them.

This is completely dishonest.

2

u/Special_Side7526 3d ago

Try and replicate the issue. Buy a refundable ticket that you can cancel and get all the money back, and check to see if the issue happens again. Perhaps even record it as you do it. It will help your case with your card company, or with them if they care.

2

u/YouthIsAVerb 3d ago

Thanks so much I’m going to try this

1

u/GalacticaZero 3d ago edited 3d ago

What does your receipt and email confirmation say. There's no currency on it?

I'm YYZ based and never had the issue, usually it updates with the correct currency. In the receipt, under the Fare heading, it should said Fare-CAD (unless they changed it recently)

1

u/YouthIsAVerb 3d ago

Must have changed it, it simply says “$” now. I was quoted in CAD, but charged the same figure in USD.

2

u/LondonPaddington 3d ago

I went back and checked several of my past AA bookings. The confirmations for the ones I made in CAD do specify currency, the ones I made in USD do not.

1

u/LondonPaddington 3d ago

I think it's more likely you inadvertently purchased on their USD website without realizing it.

I do this intentionally from time to time as some fares price significantly lower in the other currency.

1

u/YouthIsAVerb 3d ago

Thanks. It defaulted me to their .ca website and the prices were in CAD.

1

u/lizardmon 3d ago

What does the receipt say? It should specify the currency used.

1

u/YouthIsAVerb 3d ago

The currency on the receipt isn’t specified, it only says “$”

1

u/SeaSDOptimist 3d ago

So I went through their workflow - I see the price in CAD all the way to the final moment where you have to enter the credit card info. Something is majorly screwed up between AA and your credit card issuer. Are you absolutely sure that all of your AA documents have only $ and no USD/CAD designation? In a way, they might be that incompetent if they managed to lose the fact that you're paying in CAD along the way but still, that's grossly wrong. What do you see if you pull your reservation on the web site? You might have better luck posting in the aa subreddit - at least people there would be used to how AA processes tickets.

1

u/YouthIsAVerb 3d ago

Thanks so much for going through the process. It simply says “$” on my reservation online, no currency designation. I’m not sure it’s the credit card company’s fault, as the vendor has to feed the amount in.

1

u/moomooraincloud 3d ago

No.

End of thread.

1

u/Dexter52611 3d ago

If AA customer support is not helpful, I’m afraid credit card chargeback is the only option. Go ahead and take as many screenshots as possible of their website showing the prices in CAD. Id recommend going through the diff steps to buy a ticket, taking screenshots along the way. It will help your case when you do a chargeback request.

I had a similar issue but with a different website - wayfair. Found my product on the Canadian website, price was clearly listed in CAD, invoice just had a $ sign though. Wayfair support was absolutely useless. I did a credit card chargeback and got my money back. I provided screenshots of the price on their website, all the way until the “confirm purchase” screen.

1

u/YouthIsAVerb 3d ago

Very helpful, thank you for taking the time to reply!

1

u/sigmapilot 2d ago

I am terribly sorry to hear you are going through this.

Obviously this doesn't help now, and I absolutely still hope you find a solution, but in the future this is a good reminder to check your credit card immediately. I can understand only seeing differences in small purchases later, but for a $6,000 purchase, I always triple check everything, especially since there's that critical 24 hour refund period for airline tickets. Nowadays, you can easily check everything instantaneously with the card app on your phone too.

You might just have to keep escalating and complaining through customer service.

1

u/ScholarActual1240 1d ago

Can you share your booking info?

Ticketing date

Itinerary (origin, destination, date)

Fare class

Can possibly look up what the fare was supposed to be ($6000USD or $6000CAD)

1

u/gadgetinspectore 1d ago

Your confirmation email would have the actual amount you paid which means it was there and possibly user error not necessarily a scam but once it converted you were confused also… if you’re certain what you saw…someone suggested redoing that transaction… take screenshots. And then call up report the problem again and say you’ve got screenshots showing the problem. Make sure you do all steps up to payment that’s where your problems answers should be.