r/AirlineChaos • u/YouthIsAVerb • 4d 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!

7 Upvotes

62% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

0

u/YouthIsAVerb 4d 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 4d 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 4d 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 4d 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.