In terms of paying for airline tickets through the Singapore Airlines website (ends in .com), would anyone know if, even in the case of being charged in AUD, whether they process their charges through international financial institution and so I'd be up for 3.5% dynamic currency conversion charge by Citibank VISA.
Trying to weigh up using it for complimentary insurance but don't know if I'll be slugged the fee.
Not sure if you have direct Citi experience. They certainly charge the fee for Airbnb Australia even in AUD as payment goes through their London office.
If SIA bills through Singapore I'm suspecting the same will happen.
We charge you an International Transaction Fee of 3.4%, debited to your Account on the Transaction Date, of which a service and assessment fee of up to 1.1% is payable by us to Visa or Mastercard (as applicable), for any Retail Purchase or Cash Advance transaction in:
foreign currency once converted to Australian dollars; and/or
Australian dollars (or any other currency), when either the merchant or its financial institution/payment processor is located or registered overseas, including transactions that involve dynamic currency conversion (that is where a transaction denominated in a foreign currency is converted to local currency which is a service that is offered by certain ATMs and merchants). The process of conversion and the exchange rates applied will be determined by the relevant ATM, merchant or dynamic currency conversion service provider as the case may be. We do not determine whether a Card transaction will be converted into local currency by the merchant or ATM and you may have to check with the relevant merchant or ATM provider.
Note: It may also not always be clear that the merchant or its financial institution/ payment processor is located or registered outside Australia.
Just get 28 degrees and pay through that. Problem solved.
I have this card but no travel insurance included.
So then get a Bankwest Platinum card.
Hence why I'm asking, and why your previous statement "if you pay in AUD citi wont charge the fee" may not be correct.
If SIA routes its payment for Australian customers through an Australian financial institution I won't pay extra fee, but if they go through an international bank, I will.
That what I can't find out.
I rang SIA but they are clueless and I don't know whether to trust them.
Asking for anyone with first hand experience.
Checking my statement from june 2016 shows I paid in AUD and was never charged the fee.
Thanks for input.
How much are the airfares? How much would travel insurance cost if purchased seperately? I guess what I am asking is would you still come out ahead if you were charged a currency conversion fee but received free travel insurance?
Currency conversion fee would kill any benefit. But I can probably go to flight centre and they'll price match + 1% CC fee and still pay with Citi.
It's just crazy though this uncertainty around every payment even in Australia in AUD regarding where it is processed. Merchant doesn't know, Citibank doesn't know, how the f*&# is the consumer meant to know.
I would have guessed that the conversion fee would be worth it. Say you spend $2k on airfares (I know you may be spending much more than this, but you have not provided much info so can't be sure), the 3.5% conversion fee is $70. Travel insurance can definitely cost over $100 for a couple of people….. again - no idea how much you airfares cost, how many people are travelling etc.
More like $5000.
Another possible solution is to get Flightcentre to price beat. I did just that for my flight next week, and they waived all credit card fees. I paid it with my local credit card with insurance included.
overseas merchant.
Slightly off topic, but do take the time to look into how good the credit card travel insurance actually is and whether it suits your particular circumstances- my experience is that many such 'free' travel insurance policies have very tough and unusual exclusions and some policies could be classed as 'junk insurance'. For example, one policy excluded any claim where the event was related to alcohol intoxication - the policy words made it pretty clear the exclusion wasn't just for your own intoxication (a pretty tough condition in itself) but also that any harm that came your way because of someone else's intoxication was also excluded. So if you were hit overseas by a drunk driver, forget about claiming. And check the wording of paid policies too - some are not much better than the free credit card policies.
Source of the drunk driver insurance policy?
I just bought some premium economy seats with Singapore airlines but I used Skyscanner and found an agent who was about $600 cheaper than direct (for 2 people) and based in Queensland. It's pretty rare you'll get the cheapest price direct.
The weird thing is that they charged me $26 to choose my seats which is supposed to be included as part of premium economy fare. But considering they were so much cheaper than everyone else they must have found a good loophole to get the crazy fare. Singapore has sent me my tickets so all good my end.
Thanks for your suggestion. Went to skyscanner and did find a fare which ended up about $300 cheaper. Got flight centre to price match that price.
Was this Fly365? I've used them twice on Skyscanner, cheaper than most agents and haven't had any issues either.
Buying through the Australian portal of Thai Airways, in $AUD, the transaction is processed overseas and results in an international transaction fee. Thai make no mention of this, but they don’t charge the fee and don’t necessarily know your bank will charge such a fee. I suspect Singapore Airways will be similar.
Bought from them over a decade either through website or app. Never got foreignfee charge.
Dunno about SIA but in most cases paying in USD seems to be the cheapest even after paying the extra banks .035%
change the details into USD and do the math.
if you pay in AUD citi wont charge the fee