Hi guys, Looking at booking a trip from LHR to BNE for this Xmas / NYE period, but the online booking system wants to charge in GBP.

Hi guys,

Looking at booking a trip from LHR to BNE for this Xmas / NYE period, but the online booking system wants to charge in GBP.

Is it possible to pay in AUD if I ring the Qantas booking office in London?

The overseas conversion rate on my WOW Card is not the greatest, so I would rather part with the small booking fee from the call centre then lose $400AUD on the card.

From what I know, the airline company will charge you the currency of the country, that your booking out of. Excuse me if I'm incorrect.

LondonAussie,

Try booking using Expedia <dot> com <dot>au.

I've often used that for fare ex USA, Singapore and UK to pay in AUD and avoid the forex fees.

The only drawback is that sometimes Expedia's AU site does not offer the same fares as would Qantas/Expedia in the UK.

This is what I would do:

1. Do a fare search on Qantas and find out what the GBP fare is
2. Go to Expedia's UK site and make the same booking and confirm if the fare in GBP quoted is the same
3. From the Expedia UK's site, identify the booking inventory of your flights (Step 2 & 3 would not be required if Qantas offered more transparent bookings on its website!!!!)
4. Then go to the Expedia AU's site and make a similar booking - confirm if Expedia AU is offering the same flights with the same booking inventory as booking through their UK site
5. If the booking inventory is the same then it is safe to book on the Expedia AU site knowing any difference is down to forex
6. If the booking inventory is different (chances are Expedia AU site is offering the more expensive inventory) then you need to work out if the savings of fare difference outweighs the forex charges imposed by your credit card.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for the tip, I will remember this in the future.

Unfortunately, its still to far out from the dates for Expedia to work.

I ended up splitting the booking and using my British Airways Amex, so I got some points for my BA account instead.

Its just annoying that QANTAS do offer this option on their own forex. Ryanair and Easyjet allow people to pay either Euro or GBP without penalty.

You could also try Jetabroad, they're an AU online TA and charge in $AUD. Or perhaps you could contact FC in Australia via the online enquiry channel, though I'm not sure if they would just refer you back to a UK store or not.

There is a Australian based company that specializes in international ex-bound travel.

You can make arrangements via [email protected] 

You can pay via AUD for your flights 

Does he charge commission and/or credit card fees?

The credit card fees are only if the airline does and no commissions as they deal even with Expedia.

The credit card fees are only if the airline does and no commissions as they deal even with Expedia.

Still plenty of time till X-mas, I would wait few months to see what exchange rate doing.

Exchange rate my work in my favour, but I doubt the fare prices would have.

Download a VPN such as astrill and switch the IP address to Australia. It will make it come up in AUD for payment :)