Buying flights to USA using American dollar account?

The_Walker

Hi all, I wonder if I could pick your brains about buying flights from UK to USA, but using a dollar account based in the USA. My American wife and I (UK citizen) have a Byline bank account based in Chicago.

The reason being that of course the pound has gone through the floor. Can you imagine any problems with this, like getting hold of tickets in the UK when they were purchased entirely via the USA? I don't know, I'm just being careful here.
This will be an unplanned trip to Wisconsin following a death in the family over there. So it's a bit of a rush job.

Any advice/warnings gratefully received

shaun_from_Africa

I'm sure that this will be possible but I doubt if you will be able to do it online.
I know that if you go to either the BA or Delta websites and try to book a flight originating in the UK, the fare will come up in £ even if you are on the US website.
If you call the reservation line for the airline they should be able to advise if and how it can be done.



The tickets themselves shouldn't cause any problems as it's extremely rare for any airline in the west to actually issue paper tickets nowadays when the booking was made directly with them. It's all e-tickets now.

richardw

There may just not be a US$ price for return flights from the UK in the system, it may just be in GBP £. Try the US sites of Orbitz and expedia to see what they come up with.

Voyager2002

My experience is that telephoning the airline does not work: I once needed to pay an additional charge to Air France over the 'phone and the cheapest way to telephone them was to call an office in Ireland. We agreed the amount to be paid, I was quoted fees in Euro and Sterling and agreed that the charge would be taken in sterling, but then an amount in Euro was charged to my card!

Anyway: if you check on-line booking sites carefully you should find that they give you the option to change the currency in which the fare is quoted and payment is made. If that doesn't work, use a trustworthy travel agent (Trailfinders perhaps?) and book by phone using their US office: affordable thanks to Skype.

I urge you to consider whether this is a good idea. I mean, suppose that your flights cost US$1,500 or UK£1,300. If you pay in dollars then once you are there you will need to get another US$1,500 for your expenses, and getting hold of that money in dollars might cost you a good deal more than £1,300

The_Walker

Hmmm.... you guys are making me re-consider. It doesn't sound straight-forward (it never is for me). Maybe I should send over dollars to the UK, taking advantage of the better rate, and do it all from the UK like everyone else?

We won't have to exchange more in the USA for expenses by the way, we can use our dollar account for those.

dj1471

Flights are always priced in the currency of the departure country, often you can choose to pay in another currency but likely you'll get screwed on the exchange rate. As suggested you can use an agent like expedia.com who will happily sell you the flight in $ but there's still a currency conversion happening somewhere so it's likely to end up costing more.

Ultimately you need to shop around and compare options, also considering what it'd cost you to transfer your $ into a £ account.

SW17

Do you have a credit/debit card attached to the Byline bank account? If so, you could try to use this to buy the tickets online. Even if the price is in GBP, you will be billed in USD on your card, though of course any benefit will depend on if/how the card issuer applies fees to exchange rates.

There are also sometimes issues using debit cards on websites in other currencies (for example, BA's site does not accept my UK-issued Metro Bank debit card when I book a flight priced in EUR, but it is fine with my UK-issued Halifax Clarity credit card).

Murphy_The_Cat

I've just logged on to www.aa.com (not co .uk).
Once you're in, in the top right hand corner, click on the flag that shows and select the Stars & Stripes.
Do your flight search and the price comes up in $'s.
I don't know how the price in $'s compares to the price in £'s, but it seems to do what you are looking for.

I've done a similar exercise with americanairlines.ie & aa.co.uk and sometimes the difference can be substantial.

bagand96

I've bought flights UK-USA in Canadian $ using expedia.ca before because it worked out a decent chunk cheaper. Had no issues, got an eticket reference as normal within a few minutes.

Voyager2002

dj1471 wrote: »

Flights are always priced in the currency of the departure country, often you can choose to pay in another currency but likely you'll get screwed on the exchange rate.

I have always found that the exchange rate is very fair, hence my earlier comment. It would make no sense to spend a thousand dollars on flights and then convert pounds to get a thousand dollars to cover expenses once there, for instance.