Posts from mike_289 in thread „Book flights and hotels in ARS“

Quote from serafina

There is a useful simular here.

Your 100 EUR hotel in Rome, which is 117 USD, would end up costing you 15491,97 ARS if paid using an Argentinian credit card.

I exchanged yesterday at 140, so you would spend 110 USD instead of 117 USD.

This is without taking into account any intermediary fee or credit card conversion fee, which will probably take away any convenience in such deal.

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No it does not, because the website uses the official USD-ARS rate to convert it and you will then get billed in ARS. So there is no USD charge on your credit card, but rather an ARS charge.

No, seems like I should have been more clear about it. Lemme try again

Let's say, I want to book a hotel in bella Italia - Rome. The room is 100 Euro per night. The website I am talking about, takes the official exchange rate EUR-ARS and converts the Euro into ARS, which is then around 9,000 ARS. If I now would have access to a credit card, which charges me in ARS, then I would have to pay 9,000 ARS and 9,000 would then get deducted from my ARS bank account. Whereas when I would use my Euro credit card I would get billed 9,000 ARS as well but they will convert it back to Euro and I would get charged 100 Euro + conversion fees in the end.

On the other hand, I could exchange 100 Euro using the dolar blue and would get much more ARS for it. Effectively 9,000 ARS would then cost around 53 Euro. But this only works when you could use a credit card which charges you directly in ARS and do not convert it. Hence I would need a ARS credit card.

Does anyone know a travel agency or someone who has access to a credit card which charges directly in ARS? Thanks a lot!

Quote from serafina

I think we have used our local card to buy hotels on booking.com. However, the hotel owners are smart enough to let you only pay a deposit on booking.com and the rest in cash upon arrival or at the actual rate short before the booking. They don't want to commit today for, say, 4,000 thousands in 2021. They quote in USD, you pay the deposit at the current rate in ARS.

Well, I know sites which let's you book the hotel and pay it in full in ARS for the official exchange rate. Using a ARS issued credit card should then give you some nice savings

Unfortunately, I don't have an ARS credit card. Does anybody know a travel agency which could help out here and use their business credit card to book it?

Hey guys,

I know that it's getting harder and harder by the day to book hotels and flights in ARS. Yet I found a website, which is still billing you in ARS at the official rate. I have used my international credit card and got billed in ARS.

Can local credit cards be used online to book hotels billed in ARS or is there a "lock" on them so that they cannot be used or only by paying a government tax (similar to when you wanna book a flight)? Since I have to book quite a few hotels next year, it would be nice to save a bit on them