When in the US and reserving hotels in advance in Ireland...do I opt to pay in Euro or USD?
I ask because most of the hotels I am reserving are pay now and non-refundable.
Through research I have read to pay in the country currency but does that hold true if booking a pay now hotel online is the US?
Not sure what to do...
When in the US and reserving hotels in advance in Ireland...do I opt to pay in Euro or USD?
Answer: The hotel's home country currency
I ask because most of the hotels I am reserving are pay now and non-refundable.
Answer: #2 has nothing to do with #1
Pay ahead non-refundable reservations usually get you a lower rate as compared to a flexible refundable and cancelable rate. Paying ahead does not necessitate you to pay in a particular currency. You should ALWAYS choose to pay in the local currency where you're going to be traveling to.
If reserving from the states (on a U.S. site) as pay now, and have the choice, pay in dollars IF your credit card has a foreign transaction fee. If it doesn’t have a foreign transaction fee, it shouldn’t matter. If the reservation is reserve now, pay at the hotel, select/pay in the local currency; in your case, Euros. If you elect to have a hotel bill (or any bill or restaurant check) charged in dollars while in Ireland, you’ll get a worse exchange rate. In Stratford upon Avon last May, a restaurant charged me in dollars without asking, and the meal cost about $2 more than it would have had the waitress charged the meal in pounds because of the exchange rate that was used. While not much, if added up over the course of a trip, it could be quite a lot. That waitress got zero tip since we generally leave a couple pounds.
I have never tested this out, but I have read that if you use a credit card on a foreign website, you'll be charged the foreign-transaction fee (if your card has one) even if the transaction is carried out in US dollars. I have seen that information in print several times.
Correct is acraven. It is not the currency that triggers a website as foreign, it is where the business is located (usually identified by the url). And since the website operates in its home currency, your transaction is best done in that currency and letting the electronic bank network convert this to USD at the normal rates. To pay in USD allows the business to specify their own conversion rate, which will not be as favorable, as they will have to pay costs to get this money turned into their currency.
My experience is the same as ACraven: even if I'm paying in U.S. dollars, I get charged a foreign transaction fee when I buy something from a merchant in a foreign country.
Of course, if I were doing this very often I'd get a credit card that doesn't have foreign transaction fees. They are pretty readily available.
