hotel booking sites that bill as an o/s transaction?

[aspro2]

There have been a few threads related to this, but how about one that brings more info together, especially with the shrinking number of credit cards without foreign transaction fees... When you're booking (from Australia) an overseas hotel using an aggregator site, which ones typically don't/do incur foreign transaction fees?

I believe Agoda always does, this thread says Qantas's hotel bookings don't and au.hotels.com bookings don't. Is this still correct? And what about others like Virgin Australia ("Rocket travel by Agoda"), booking.com, Expedia, etc?

 

[CaptJCool]

There have been a few threads related to this, but how about one that brings more info together, especially with the shrinking number of credit cards without foreign transaction fees... When you're booking a hotel overseas using an aggregator, which ones typically don't/do incur foreign transaction fees?

I believe Agoda always does, this thread says Qantas's hotel bookings don't. Is this still correct?

Yes

It’s to do with the location of the merchant
Back in 2016 foreign merchants used to offer transactions in either $A or home currency. It meant banks changed rules to levy the 3% foreign exchange fees based on merchant location

In my 3 month trip just finished, this option was regularly offered which I declined 98% of the time but did get snagged twice - once in Prague where an hotel employee had fast fingers when doing a payment for beers and the other with Avis in Germany while I was in the bathroom. Gah. It adds a arm and leg to the bill as not only do you get an awful exchange rate offered by the merchant, you then get hit by your bank

So of course the bank here has zero visibility of the accommodation transaction to know and QF hotels as a shopfront for Expedia does all that foreign conversions in the background .

 

[aspro2]

It’s to do with the location of the merchant
Back in 2016 foreign merchants used to offer transactions in either $A or home currency. It meant banks changed rules to levy the 3% foreign exchange fees based on merchant location

Thanks for your comments .I should add a clarification of the question, however (actually I'll edit the original message as well: I meant overseas hotels, not booking while overseas.