Using your Argentina credit card while traveling outside Argentina

[pmacay]

We have a Santander debit and credit card. Recently I purchased some show tickets for an upcoming trip to Mexico, the Mexican show quoted me a price in Argentina pesos. When the charge arrived at Santander, it was converted into a USA $$ amount. I contacted the Mexican company and they assured me that they charged my credit card in Arg pesos. I went to Santander and the representative told me this is a government policy that all charges made outside Argentina are converted into a USA $$ charge. Ok, government regulation, whatcha gonna do?

Now here is where it gets weird.

We have a recurring USA $$ charge every month to pay for a youtube premium membership. I did a little math and it seems all backwards, I have to be doing something wrong. Last month the YouTube premium was charged to our Santander account as u$s 1,79 and Santander converted the charge as Arg pesos -973,06 to pay it off.

That comes out to 544 pesos to the USA $$$, this was for the month of May 2024.
$1.79 x 544 = 973.76

So the debit to our account was 973.06 ARG pesos to pay a $1.79 USA charge

so if I'm figuring this right

973.06 pesos / 1190 (the last blue dollar exchange rate we got) will be 0.82 cents USA to pay off a $1.79 USA charge on our Santander account.

This makes no sense. If my math is right then it makes sense to use our Argentina credit cards when we travel abroad, instead of our USA credit cards.

Anyone have any ideas on using your Argentina credit card when traveling abroad?

 

[lunar]

So the debit to our account was 973.06 ARG pesos to pay a $1.79 USA charge

Does the transaction description explicitly state that this amount corresponds to a $1.79 charge generated by Google? It's possible that you're looking at a tax transaction related to an earlier payment. What's the exact wording?

 

[pmacay]

This is a monthly charge from youtube premium so I can see this happening every month.

 

[gringoexpress]

Wait till the end of the month when the bank either adjusts the amount or the tax charge from AFIP posts.

 

[Che1990]

This is a monthly charge from youtube premium so I can see this happening every month.

I’d wait until the end of the month to see if you get any extra charges for thaf. As I understood it, using your Arg card to pay for foreign purchases is the ‘dolar tarjeta’ which is the official + a massive great big tax to discourage use. It could be that the tax is charged separately. Dolarhoy.com has that rate a $1473. I don’t know though

 

[LuckyLuke]

My cuñado here has run into some similar problems using his Argentina credit card for Brazil and Mexico accommodations & flights. We learned from his experience to be very careful with booking anything outside Argentina. It seems that companies based outside Argentina can't actually charge you in Arg Pesos. The prices are quoted on the website as Arg pesos (using a generic calculator at Dolar Oficial) ...but then get charged at USD which then gets converted to I believe Dolar Turista. So the math being for example:

Flight cost: $100 (USD)
Website quotes: $100 (USD) x 921 (Dolar Oficial) = $92,100
Charges Argentina credit card: $100 (USD) x 1473 (Dolar Turista) = $147,300

As a favor, we book all his international travel costs on our US card to avoid the Dolar Turista surtax.

Aerolineas Argentina does a very sneaky reverse trick with us. If we pay with a US credit card, it will quote us in Arg pesos then charge our card USD at the oficial Peso rate, thereby forcing us to pay far more dollars even though Visa/Mastercard has a preferential rate when charged in pesos. An obvious bait & switch ploy to capture tourist dollars by disguising the actual currency being charged to the card. So we have to use a local card to bypass that on this end.

I hope that clarifies the government regulation part. I can't make sense out of your youtube situation though.

 

[gringoexpress]

My cuñado here has run into some similar problems using his Argentina credit card for Brazil and Mexico accommodations & flights. We learned from his experience to be very careful with booking anything outside Argentina. It seems that companies based outside Argentina can't actually charge you in Arg Pesos. The prices are quoted on the website as Arg pesos (using a generic calculator at Dolar Oficial) ...but then get charged at USD which then gets converted to I believe Dolar Turista. So the math being for example:

Flight cost: $100 (USD)
Website quotes: $100 (USD) x 921 (Dolar Oficial) = $92,100
Charges Argentina credit card: $100 (USD) x 1473 (Dolar Turista) = $147,300

As a favor, we book all his international travel costs on our US card to avoid the Dolar Turista surtax.

Aerolineas Argentina does a very sneaky reverse trick with us. If we pay with a US credit card, it will quote us in Arg pesos then charge our card USD at the oficial Peso rate, thereby forcing us to pay far more dollars even though Visa/Mastercard has a preferential rate when charged in pesos. An obvious bait & switch ploy to capture tourist dollars by disguising the actual currency being charged to the card. So we have to use a local card to bypass that on this end.

I hope that clarifies the government regulation part. I can't make sense out of your youtube situation though.

Very unfortunate news about Aerolineas Argentinas. I enjoyed some very cheap flights at their expense paying in pesos with my foreign card last year.

 

[pmacay]

Yes, when I went to Santander to talk to someone, he said the best thing to do is deposit USA $$$ into the dollar part of my account, this way you pay the charged amount in dollars with dollars, and then he said you will get an automatic "refund" from the government from part of the tax. I haven't done this yet so I can't verify how much of the tax you get back, but you know Argentina, everything changes so quickly it's hard to keep up with how things work.

 

[AdrianB]

Aerolineas Argentina does a very sneaky reverse trick with us. If we pay with a US credit card, it will quote us in Arg pesos then charge our card USD at the oficial Peso rate, thereby forcing us to pay far more dollars even though Visa/Mastercard has a preferential rate when charged in pesos.

Is this new? I bought aerolineas tickets online in january and was charged in pesos on my european card.

 

[LuckyLuke]

Is this new? I bought aerolineas tickets online in january and was charged in pesos on my european card.

That's great news. This was around 2 years ago, it sounds like they may have dropped the practice since then.