Charged £144 to pay by amex

kaza

I have just bought flights with sky europe and when my amex bill came it was for £144 more than the email confirmation. Iphoned sky europe and they said that only for amex they put it through in foreign currency (even so weve been charged 15%) . Ive contacted amex and thyre looking into it.

Does anyone know what i can do, any help appreciated.
Thanks
karen

Sun

I know this happens with Paypal but they display a warning for this before u can confirm the payment.

AQUA-IAN

How much did your flights cost? I can't answer this thread until you can be more elaborate.

King_Of_Fools

It is quite usual to be charged a 5% fee on travel related items when paying with Amex but not 15%!

lisyloo

Is it possible that the $ price for the flights was higher than the £ price i.e. they don't convert on a daily basis they actually have fixed prices.

I booked a cruise once and I saved about £250 by paying in $s.
They don't change the price of the holiday every day. The prices are fixed.
This can work to your advantage or disadvantage.

e.g. Lets suppose a flight is $200 and there are $2 to the £.
The that's is £100.

Let's suppose that the exchange rate changes to $1 to the £.
The flight now costs £200.

I know it's a silly example but I hope it demonstrates the point that if NOMINAL $ prices stay the same then the sterling equivalent can go up or down.

I'm just guessing that this MIGHT be what happenign to you as currency conversion charges do not explain it.

kaza

Hi, thanks for the replies.

The cost of the flights werew£1000, price was quoted in pounds only, on the confirmation email only once paid for it stated the amount in skk (slovakian currency) and then under it converted it back to sterling and there was a £4 difference, so I presumed that was the charge, but on the amex bill it is £144 extra!. In the airlines small print there is nothing about amex being charged in skk, and the prices given are quoted in £s. So can they do this, could i ask the airline to credit all the skk back to amex and I pay by visa instead which they always put through in sterling.

Thanks
karen

grumbler

They cannot charge more than you authorised them to do. I'd try to dispute the transaction with Amex (letter+copy of the email) and ask them to refund you £140 and charge the company back with this amount. In this case the company must supply Amex with the proof that you authorised them to take more than £1000.
Printout of the screen with £1000 could be very helpful too. If you don't have it, try to repeat the process of booking and print it out without completion.

kaza

I have faxed the booking confirmation to amex with £1000 on it, They said they will look into it.

kaza

Amex have just confirmed they will be refunding the difference, it was because they didnt have a sterling account set up with the airline :j