Just a quick tip that I recently learned: when booking your flight out to the Greek Islands on Aegean Air, be sure to use a credit card that allows foreign transactions with no extra fees. We're always really careful about this when making purchases once we're in a foreign country (and even booking trains within the country) but for some reason it didn't occur to me that I'd get hit with extra fees for airfare, since every airline ticket I've ever bought (even those to Europe) have always been charged in USD and not EUR. Maybe that's obvious to everyone else and unnecessary to share, but I figure I'd quickly pass that tip along in case it helps anyone else out who's on a budget :)
Posted by
Tucson
4151 posts
But this was an internal European trip, right? With an airline that doesn't fly to the US, right?
Whenever I've made reservations or bought tickets for trains, buses or planes online in Europe, I've always had to inform my CC provider that I would be doing that or else the charges will be denied. They need to know that I'm making legitimate transactions in foreign currencies. It's no different from charging things while in Europe.
Fortunately, both my credit cards are thru credit unions, so the cost for doing that is below 1%. Your advice to use a CC that doesn't charge fees is absolutely correct.
Airfare examples from the past 2 years: FlyBe one way Kirkwall to Aberdeen charged in pounds. Aegean one way Athens to Santorini charged in euros. Turkish Rome to Istanbul to Athens to Rome via Istanbul purchased with CC points, the equivalent of US dollars.
Posted by
OP
195 posts
Yep, it seems obvious now that it happened, but for some reason it didn't occur to me when booking since I've never bought an intra-Europe plane ticket before. Figured I'd pass the tip along in case it helps someone else out!
Good point about informing your credit card company...I always do that for the dates I'll actually be in another country, but you're right, somebody could in theory have the charge denied for booking foreign airfare several months ahead of the trip. Luckily, that didn't happen to me, but others might want to keep that in mind.