Watch Out For The Exchange Rates Used By Certain Booking Websites

November 8, 2008

Hi all,

Thought I would share a useful bit of info for all.

Some websites and hotels use Dynamic Currency conversion to process credit card payments for hotel bookings. This is when you are charged in your local currency. At the moment there are 12 or so available, from USD, GBP,EURO and YEN to name a few. There is no option to pay in Thai Baht. So when you see a website that may advertise in Baht, but will not charge you in Baht, you know they are using DCC.

Benefits of DCC.

1. You know the exact cost of the transaction.

Things you don't know

1. Merchants( website/hotels) and the bank the merchants use to process these transactions get 2-3 % kickbacks on the total charged. Thats pretty nice if you yearly turnover is 250 Million USD like some of the biggest websites do. You also get done on the exchange rate used, as they use the Reuters rate which is on average 3-4 % higher.

2. You think its great to get charged in your local currency, but you are getting ripped off on the conversion and getting charged so much more USD, GBP etc.

Whos using it?

Many websites out there are doing this. We did this about 2 years ago. Until some customers said" What rate r u using?" So I decided to drop it. You can see this link to see more about it.

http://www.e-clearing.com/index.jsp?step=03_05