Different Air Fare Prices For Booking Within/out Argentina?

GS_Dirtboy

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Sorry if this was covered in previous threads but I couldn't find the answer to my exact question.

I am booking flights to the US and the difference between putting my Argentina address and my US address is about 25% more for Argentina. It looks like this is not the 20% surcharge for using a credit card.

Can anyone shed some light on this? Are the prices just higher if booked from Argentina? This is on American Airlines.

Thanks!

GS
 
GS...Are you booking online with AA? Is your credit card issued in the US, with a US address? I use AA to the US for every trip, indicating country of origin as the US since my credit card is US issued, with a US address. As I'm sure you know, fares with travel originating in Argentina are different from those with travel originating in the US, but in many cases the extra percentage you may encounter could be a "surcharge" that AA (and other carriers) add to the base fare. Sometimes this "surcharge" is shown included in the base fare, sometimes not - it's to the discretion of the airline. A base fare may actually be lower than shown, but the added "surcharge" then pumps it up in the end. These "surcharges" - which most frequently are said to be based on "seasonal" travel - are just another way for the airlines to sock it to the passenger.
 
The way I understand it: Airlines must list all government taxes and mandatory fees in their advertised prices, which would include the 20% Argentine travel surcharge if applicable: Argentine address. Nothing hidden.
 
I didn't even get to the credit card. AA online was changing the price simply based upon country of residency. I wanted to use my Argentine credit card and pay with Pesos but now not sure which direction to go.
 
My experience is that you're just going to have to price out both tickets separately and see which one is cheaper.

It all depends on the routing of your ticket and how high the blue rate is. If the routing is cheap enough, it may not save you all that much money to pay with pesos. In most cases however, you will save a few hundred dollars at least when buying with pesos even with the 20% sur charge. The higher the blue rate the more you save of course.

If your ticket is originating outside of Argentina then I believe that most airlines will no longer allow you to pay in pesos. Your flight must originate in Argentina. This is there way of closing the loop hole.
 
I think if you put residency as Argentina they include the 20% but I'm not sure, and hell it changes all the time.
A month ago I bought a ticket RT to the states originating here in Argentina, put my residency as USA (still don't have my perm res) and made the reservation online at aa.com. Then I went straight to the AA office on Libertador and paid in pesos (reservation was made in dollars, so they converted at the official rate). They did not charge me the 20% "surcharge" because by making the reservation online as a US resident the website didn't automatically add it in (she said) and as I'm still a tourist she said I didn't need to be charged (I'm not going to argue), she took a xerox of my most recent passport entry stamp. As you have residency perhaps she'd charge you at the counter though...
 
Hmmm. that might be a loophole that I didn't think about. I finally just bought my ticket using US as my residency and paying with my US credit card. I tried a number of different combinations but always the price for the air fare was higher by 25% if putting Argentina as my country of residence. I'm pretty sure this is just a fare difference and not the credit card surcharge.

I usually want to buy $-denominated goods and services with my Arg cc and pay in Pesos. Even with the 20% surcharge it is cheaper to "buy" these Dollars with this method than the blue rate. However, the fare difference was just too high on this transaction.
 
In general,so I believe,if one travels from Argieland to UK you will pay much more than from UK to Argieland even using the same airline and the same times and dates.
It's not your residence it's where you are travelling from that determines the price,well it does in the above scenario,maybe different for you nor/ams?
 
International airfares are directional whereas domestic airfares are reciprocal. The published fare for a round trip journey NYC-LAX-NYC is the same for a round trip journey LAX-NYC-LAX. In the case of international fares, airlines are required to file published fares from each country of origin with the respective government of that carrier's destination. Thus, AA's published fares from Argentina to the US are different than AA's published fares from the US to Argentina, whether they are one way fares or round trip fares (and the same goes for AR, UA, DL).

As an example, a round trip economy class (restricted or unrestricted) fare EZE-JFK-EZE, outbound 24/02/2014, inbound 10/3/2014, with the US as country of residence, is $1632.00. The same journey with the same type of fare JFK-EZE-JFK, with the same dates and country of residence, is $1415.00.

Using the same dates, same type of economy class fare and same country of residence for a DFW-LHR-DFW and a LHR-DFW-LHR journey, the fares are $1039.00 and $989.00, respectively.

Using the same dates, same type of economy class fare and same country of residence for a JFK-LAX-JFK and a LAX-JFK-LAX journey, the fare is the same whether the origin is JFK or LAX, $952.00.

I was an international air tariff analyst for 35 years before retirement. I did this work for 14 years with several different airlines, then for 20 years with American Express. In all of those years, never once did I encounter a published international airfare (regardless of class of service or fare type) between two international city pairs to be the same in each direction. International airfare pricing is comprised of a wholly different set of rules and regulations in contrast to a country's domestic airfare pricing rules and regulations.
 
Both of my tests were EZE-MIA-PHL. When I used Argentina as my country of residence the fare was ~ $300US higher than if I used the US as my country of residence.
 
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