Aer Lingus - currency conversion - is this right?

happybunny75

Hi all

I'm hoping that someone will be able to help me.

I recently booked flights for 4 from Dublin to New York. As the flight leaves from Dublin, all prices are shown in Euros. I went through to payment and entered the details for my trusty Post Office credit card, therefore ensuring that I wouldn't incur any nasty credit card fees because of paying in Euros. However, I get to the last page (confirmation) where everything is still being shown in Euros until the very last line where it says it's converted my payment to GB Sterling. Ok, methinks, I may have made a mistake in that I should have selected somewhere that I wanted to pay in Euros. So I go back one page and note that no, there is no option to pay by Euros (bearing in mind all prices up until now have been quoted in Euros). Much annoyed, I decide to at least get a bit of cashback so change my payment card to Egg instead.

Now, my tickets are all bought and paid for but I'm annoyed. Aer Lingus have charged me 3.75% of my purchase all so I can pay in GB pounds (which I didn't want to do). I estimate this has cost me an additional £50-£60.

Anyway, moving on. I email Aer Lingus. The first response says, yes we charged in Euros as Dublin is the originating airport. Ok, it didn't answer my question so I email again. Trying to set things out a little more simpler. The response I get is, yes, Aer Lingus will show all prices in Euros but it will charge in GB pounds for a sterling based credit card.

My question is, can they really do this? Is it fair? No! But legally, can they do this?

I have sent a further email saying that although I understand what they're saying, I don't agree with their 'policy' in which case I'd like to make a formal complaint. Has anybody else had any other similar problems with Aer Lingus or any other overseas businesses?

Thank you ever so much in advance for any responses.

Regards

Nicky

dzug1

Legally they probably can. No criminal offence has been committed.

However it probably breaches their contract with the CC companies which says that where 'dynamic currency conversion' is offered, then the customer has the choice as to whether he pays in the transaction currency (euros in this case) or his own.

However I'm not 100% convinced that this is DCC in the normal sense.

See if you can get anywhere with your card issuer.