Hotels charging MEP rate for cash payments since Friday

That's not true. What are you talking about? booking.com shows the property currency and the usd rate at the offical Banco Nacion exchange rate and that's the rate that is used.
it's an issue you need to -- and seem to have already -- raise with booking.com.
 
You are correct. The price is in USD. So you either put this on your foreign card and pay that or pay at the official rate in pesos/cash. But my point was more in line with the reference to Booking.com and the payment managed by them. Even if the payment is not managed by them there will be a USD dominated estimated total. I think they should have refused to and have booking.com intervene. But I guess they will at some point.

it's an issue you need to -- and seem to have already -- raise with booking.com.
The issue is not with Booking.com. The issue is with Argentine hotels thinking there is a new official policy of a "tourist dollar" that applies to hotel prices. It has to do with no one understanding that the new directive is about card purchases that would potentially allow foreigners to access a favorable rate instead of using cuevas and not a free pass for hotels to defraud foreigners.
 
Hotels are charging the MEP rate since Friday even for cash payments despite ...
The issue is with Argentine hotels thinking there is a new official policy of a "tourist dollar" that applies to hotel prices.
It looks like you used your credit card and was charged according to the official rate.
Are you aware of any situation when MEP rate was actually applied by a hotel?
Or you just know what they are thinking?
 
The issue is not with Booking.com. The issue is with Argentine hotels thinking there is a new official policy of a "tourist dollar" that applies to hotel prices. It has to do with no one understanding that the new directive is about card purchases that would potentially allow foreigners to access a favorable rate instead of using cuevas and not a free pass for hotels to defraud foreigners.
Even before this supposed new tourist dollar, there were always hotels on booking.com trying to charge the blue rate for hotel stays. I've seen several reviews on booking.com about hotels forcing people to pay at the blue rate and always just avoid those ones. Hopefully it won't become a more popular trend with this tourist dollar rate for cards that may or may not ever come to fruition.

But also, the hotel must have charged your card in pesos. So they basically used the USD reference price and then multiplied by the MEP rate and charged that amount in pesos to your card? Oof. I assume you'll be able to dispute the charge on your card, but that means a reservation on booking for a $500 hotel stay, that should have been half that at the official rate, will show up on your card for over $900. Does the receipt show they charged you an amount in pesos that corresponds to the MEP?
 
Even before this supposed new tourist dollar, there were always hotels on booking.com trying to charge the blue rate for hotel stays. I've seen several reviews on booking.com about hotels forcing people to pay at the blue rate and always just avoid those ones. Hopefully it won't become a more popular trend with this tourist dollar rate for cards that may or may not ever come to fruition.

But also, the hotel must have charged your card in pesos. So they basically used the USD reference price and then multiplied by the MEP rate and charged that amount in pesos to your card? Oof. I assume you'll be able to dispute the charge on your card, but that means a reservation on booking for a $500 hotel stay, that should have been half that at the official rate, will show up on your card for over $900. Does the receipt show they charged you an amount in pesos that corresponds to the MEP?
Yeah, the point is it's going to be rampant the over charging because people hear "tourist dollar" and they think it should correspond to the original tourist dollar where Argentines pay more abroad. So the equivalent intuituve Argentine logic would be foreigners paying more in Argentina! Lol. They don't understand the core motivation of banking USD by giving foreigners a better rate for using cards.

As for my situation, I was trying to pay in cash pesos at the rate agreed when I booked. They doubled the price by calculating their dollar rate at MEP. It was a $650 USD stay that should have been $107,000 pesos + 21% IVA as quoted by booking and they wanted $230,000 pesos in pesos cash.

I booked with AMEX to dispute charge and have a reply from Booking that agreed to an overcharge so I'll get it all back to their detriment. Whatever, the point is chaos, as always.
 
It was a $650 USD stay that should have been ...
And it is a $650 USD stay. If you decided that you want to buy this $650 USD for pesos, it is your problem, not theirs.
 
Yeah, the point is it's going to be rampant the over charging because people hear "tourist dollar" and they think it should correspond to the original tourist dollar where Argentines pay more abroad. So the equivalent intuituve Argentine logic would be foreigners paying more in Argentina! Lol. They don't understand the core motivation of banking USD by giving foreigners a better rate for using cards.

As for my situation, I was trying to pay in cash pesos at the rate agreed when I booked. They doubled the price by calculating their dollar rate at MEP. It was a $650 USD stay that should have been $107,000 pesos + 21% IVA as quoted by booking and they wanted $230,000 pesos in pesos cash.

I booked with AMEX to dispute charge and have a reply from Booking that agreed to an overcharge so I'll get it all back to their detriment. Whatever, the point is chaos, as always.
Sorry, I'm still not completely following. What did they actually charge your card in pesos? The 107,000 which will go through at the official rate?

That would be so frustrating. Good luck disputing the charge. I've disputed charges here before (pre the parallel rates) and always got the money back. Granted it was for a lot less money when I did it, but still.
 
I think this is an anecdote of a single person being ripped off. Unfortunately for them.

We have a hotel booked in Misiones next month and the price was quoted in dollars which is very normal (the Alvear hotel group does this as a standard practice for example, for all guests - citizens and foreigners alike). I wrote our hotel to ask and received the following response —

“Las tarifas en USD se convierten al dólar oficial BNA venta del día del pago.”
 
I would have told them to f right off. I could see how a tourist could be confused into compliance though. La Viveza Criolla.
 
And it is a $650 USD stay. If you decided that you want to buy this $650 USD for pesos, it is your problem, not
A
I would have told them to f right off. I could see how a tourist could be confused into compliance though. La Viveza Criolla.
Yes! Tourists would have no club and would easily be defrauded into paying double.
 
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