Dilemma – Not charged taxes for international flight.

[BettyB]

Looking for advice and perhaps any one else's experience with the following situation.



About a week ago I made a QF award flight booking. As the flight commenced in the US the taxes had to be processed as a foreign currency transaction. There was a pending charge on my credit card for this. The tickets did not arrive, so I contacted QF via their online chat several times. They said there was a problem processing foreign currency transactions, so there would be a delay in issuing the tickets. Tickets were finally issued last night. But the transaction for the credit card payment of taxes has now completely disappeared. So it appears that I was never charged for the taxes. This was around $600 USD.



I now have my tickets. But should I contact QF to tell them that I haven't been charged? I'd, of course, love not to pay. But if they discover the error then would they cancel the flights? Or would they contact me and ask me to pay?



The flights are not for 9 months from now.

 

[mannej]

Better to have this sorted earlier rather than at the airport.

 

[DC3]

If it has been ticketed, I would just leave it. When they want their money they can get back to you.

 

[Denali]

You know when poop hits the fan youre going to hear "Taxes werent paid so the ticket is not valid".

I wouldnt leave it to chance but thats me, the fine print is always going to screw with you.

 

[blackcat20]

You know when poop hits the fan youre going to hear "Taxes werent paid so the ticket is not valid".

I wouldnt leave it to chance but thats me, the fine print is always going to screw with you.

Tickets issued though.

 

[mannej]

Tickets issued though.

I’m fairly sure there was a post recently about a similar situation, and QF not allowing travel due to the unpaid taxes.

 

[serfty]

Tickets van be invalidated at a whim.

Have the points been deducted?

 

[blackcat20]

And people have flown on unpaid tickets. It could go either way.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Looking for advice and perhaps any one else's experience with the following situation.



About a week ago I made a QF award flight booking. As the flight commenced in the US the taxes had to be processed as a foreign currency transaction. There was a pending charge on my credit card for this. The tickets did not arrive, so I contacted QF via their online chat several times. They said there was a problem processing foreign currency transactions, so there would be a delay in issuing the tickets. Tickets were finally issued last night. But the transaction for the credit card payment of taxes has now completely disappeared. So it appears that I was never charged for the taxes. This was around $600 USD.



I now have my tickets. But should I contact QF to tell them that I haven't been charged? I'd, of course, love not to pay. But if they discover the error then would they cancel the flights? Or would they contact me and ask me to pay?



The flights are not for 9 months from now.

If it’s a qantas award, flying on a qantas plane, absolutely no need for you to do anything now.

Before you step foot on the plane you should probably pay the fees and charges. But you can let the money sit in your bank rather than theirs

If qantas cancels the flight due to non payment, they will simply book you back on the flight again, creating an award seat if necessary.

If this is an award flying on a partner airline... then you should probably chase up payment. If the partner airline cancels the award Qantas can’t just recreate seats.

 

[BettyB]

Have the points been deducted?

Yes. That happened immediately.

If it’s a qantas award, flying on a qantas plane, absolutely no need for you to do anything now.

I'm sorry. My mistake. I booked through the QF site, but flight is with CX.​

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Yes. That happened immediately.

I'm sorry My mistake. I booked through the QF site, but flight is with CX.​

Oh... then I would probably follow that up. You can give it a few days to see if it comes through anyway, which is suspect it will.

 

[juddles]

BettyB, my advice is to chase it up. I will explain why:

I travel often between Colombia and Chile. As a resident of Colombia, there is a departure tax that applies to me but is not applicable to visitors. I usually buy tickets starting from Colombia, and the tax is always included in the purchase price. BUT, if I buy a return ticket starting in Chile to head to Colombia, the tax is NOT included in the cost. But upon trying to exit Colombia with the second half of the return ticket, the airline lets you know at checkin that you now need to pay the tax, which you do at an airport counter from whichever airline it is.

I know everywhere is not the same, but my frequent experience is that the issue of the ticket itself is not the end of the story.

 

[madrooster]

QF's US merchant is known to take weeks to settle a transaction after ticketing. I've seen it take as long as 3 weeks to settle.

 

[eric2011]

As per madrooster in the post above
I have recently made a few purchases in USA and the merchant will often do a authorisation on my card which will dissappear after about a week only to be deducted a week or so later. In your case, if it was me I would wait (if you have the time) about 2 weeks before contacting them

 

[nickfromeastryde]

BettyB, my advice is to chase it up. I will explain why:

I travel often between Colombia and Chile. As a resident of Colombia, there is a departure tax that applies to me but is not applicable to visitors. I usually buy tickets starting from Colombia, and the tax is always included in the purchase price. BUT, if I buy a return ticket starting in Chile to head to Colombia, the tax is NOT included in the cost. But upon trying to exit Colombia with the second half of the return ticket, the airline lets you know at checkin that you now need to pay the tax, which you do at an airport counter from whichever airline it is.

I know everywhere is not the same, but my frequent experience is that the issue of the ticket itself is not the end of the story.

As visitors, we have bought tickets from Colombia to Miami a couple of times, and had someone from the airline approach us in the queue to give us the tax back in cash, have no idea how they know it is us though we probably do stand out. Both times was with AA

Must admit now that you have reminded me, we did buy return tickets to LIM with LATAM last year and no tax was returned. Going forward, should we be following up with the check in staff in your opinion?

 

[p--and--t]

BettyB - if you only booked within last day or so - wait.

I booked a RTW on the QF site on several carriers, got my confirmation 2 hours later, received ticket two days later then 3 days after that they hit the credit card.

Early days yet.

 

[OATEK]

I know with my BW MC, the pending transaction will disappear, and then about 24hrs later the confirmed payment appear. So give it a day or 2 to start with.

 

[BettyB]

BettyB - if you only booked within last day or so - wait.

I booked a RTW on the QF site on several carriers, got my confirmation 2 hours later, received ticket two days later then 3 days after that they hit the credit card.

Early days yet.

Booking was made 18-7-2018.

Tickets received 24-7-2018, after three online chat sessions chasing them up.

 

[BettyB]

Problem resolved. Charge appeared on my card overnight. This was 9 days after making the booking.

Thanks for the advice everyone. Hopefully this may help others in the same situation in the future.