This might be a silly question but does it matter if we book our hotel showing the CHF price instead of US dollars?
Posted by
Freedonia
19196 posts
Always pay/book in the local currency. Your bank or credit card will give a better exchange rate than any hotel/restaurant/store will.
It's called Dynamic Currency Conversion.
Posted by
Eastern Iowa, USA
9467 posts
The exception might be with a site like Booking.com, they charge you in the current rate without DCC, and disclose the cost, if any.
From there, the question is pay now in USD, vs CHF for a transaction 3, 6, or 9 months from now. At that point you are into currency speculation, which few ever "win". I suppose it comes down to if the price seems right, pay it and never look back, as long as there are no additional charges.
Posted by
OP
77 posts
Thank you, just checking if I understood that correctly.
Posted by
Treasure Island, Florida, USA
319 posts
Note to Paul:
Booking.com, after you log in, at the top is the currency form you have chosen. (In my case, USD) If you click on that, it allows you to change to just about any currency you can think of. Hope this helps (choose Switzerland Swiss Franc - CHF).
Posted by
385 posts
going back to the original question, no it's not silly if they really are offering a choice of currency because if you choose USD from a foreign business it's likely that they will apply the currency conversion fee - and that will probably be higher than paying in local currency and letting the card issuer charge the fee. But you can try playing the markets so if the dollar is falling you can lock the price.
But most sites merely offer a price conversion as a guide of what it would be at that moment, and you will pay in local currency at some point, and if that is when you are there the converted price in dollars may not be the same as you saw at booking due to currency rates changing. Booking.com does this, you can select whichver currency you like, but there will be a note saying "prices converted to USD follow by an "i" icon, and if you clcik on that it says "Prices have been converted from CHF to show the approximate cost based on our latest exchange rate."
Posted by
Treasure Island, Florida, USA
319 posts
mecrewe, you have a very good point. I did a "deep dive" and found that, just because you've changed the currency upon sign in, it will not necessarily be the actual currency charged. That will be shown on the very final page where you click "pay now" - it will show what currency you will be charged in. It is up to the specific property.