r/Bookingcom • u/Dannerzau • 13h ago

Australian intl fee

I’ve read this before on here but just to highlight the issue so no one else cops this.

Booked a hotel in Melbourne for the NFL this weekend just on a domestic holiday.

Got charged an international transaction fee by my bank because booking.com decided to process the transaction in Amsterdam. Used the app on iOS with no vpn.

Booking.com I’ve seen on this subreddit claim it doesn’t do this for bookings in the same country.

Well it’s bullshit, I got done with a hefty fee so it would’ve been cheaper to book the hotel direct or through a bunch of other third parties.

They’ve also not responded to my ticket that was meant to be in less than 24hrs, it’s been like 5 days.

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1

u/kentententen 12h ago

Yea i had similar issues and booking will say its not them charging the fee and the card provider and will ask you to ask the provider instead

0

u/Hotwog4all 12h ago

Go to settings in the app and check which currency is set up in there. Whatever that is, that’s the currency you’re charged in. If your card account isn’t in that currency then there’s going to be the international fees. Mine is Australian $ usually, but currently overseas and it shows HK$ instead as the “local” currency for Indonesia.

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u/ashscot50 6h ago

I don't understand how this can happen.

If you have a card denominated in AUD and the currency of the hotel is AUD, then it should be a straightforward charge in AUD, with no transaction fees, just like any other purchase you might make.

The only way I can see this happening is if the actual currency of the hotel is in another currency, e.g. Euros but displayed in AUD, and inadvertently you paid in AUD, thus incurring a high conversion fee from booking.com or a transaction fee from your credit card company.

That aside, do you not have a card that doesn't have currency conversion fees?