Booking.com - Using PayPal - Currency Conversion Rip off?

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  original15 on 15/02/2024 - 07:12

  I mean, if you paid using PayPal, I’d be shocked if it didn’t use PayPal’s exchange rate

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    SaberX on 15/02/2024 - 15:38

    Why should it though? For years and years you could pay with PayPal and it was just possible to pay in your cards conversion (not theirs). In fact I'd be surprised why anyone would let PayPal convert it for them willingly .

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      original15 on 15/02/2024 - 15:56

      Yeh their rate is shocking most of the time

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  neo on 15/02/2024 - 08:48

  Yes, they might be using their own rate. Also, the amount can fluctuate because of exchange rates so what you see when you book is not the same price when you actually pay (if you paid later).

  Best I've found is to use a Mastercard with no fees like CBA ultimate card that uses Mastercard rate and is a good conversion rate.

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    SaberX on 15/02/2024 - 15:43

    I understand the whole diff between the booking price and when they pay can result in differences. But the original jpy yen price is there and a quick google of the spot rate it's still well within the sub $700 mark. The charge of $738 was a good 5%+ diff.

    The thing is the Bankwest credit card is literally at near spot rates.i used it for other hotels with direct payments and on all my purchases in person these last few days. Literally just chose to pay with PayPal using that same credit card and got whacked with auto currency conversion.

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  Emphasise on 15/02/2024 - 09:41

  +1

  You probably had the PayPal exchange rate selected which in most cases is terrible. There's also another setting called something like automated payments which is what may have skipped some of the payment prompts to appear.

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    SaberX on 15/02/2024 - 15:45

    I definitely would never choose an auto currency. Typical payment screens show the toggles and I would toggle it. When I tried switching other hotel bookings to PayPal I got no prompts. I suspect it's as you said as I saw booking.com was in my automatic subscriptions section.

    The only way is to login to the full PayPal website (not even the mobile platform) to manage the subscription, then toggle it off. This seems really disingenuous and hidden if so. Is this a typical thing? My other automatic subscriptions for once off websites I've bought off are historically in my active subscriptions and all have currency conversion toggled off.

    So I'm not sure if it's a booking.com lack of toggling or a new PayPal thing to rort you.

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  JimB on 15/02/2024 - 10:06

  +6

  Most likely probably didn't change the default currency when paying. Easy to ship

  If the hotel is the same price and doesn't have a cancellation fee, you could re-book and cancel the existing booking.

  That's one good thing about Hotels.com, the rates are shown in AUD and you pay in AUD.

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    star-ggg on 15/02/2024 - 12:11

    It's not obvious to me whether OP would get refunded in Yen which then gets converted back to AUD by paypal (and OP eats conversion rates again), or if the original transaction would just be voided.

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      JimB on 15/02/2024 - 12:20

      Good question.

      I believe you'll pay the difference between currency movements, but the surcharges would be refunded.

      I doubt they will charge you 2x of transaction fees but best to confirm PayPal. Otherwise, we will see another Post 'Paypal charged me 2 x forex transaction fees for refunded purchase'.

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      SaberX on 15/02/2024 - 15:47

      That's what crossed my mind. I've now stayed at the hotel the charge relates to. At the time I was tempted to cancel and refund it and rebook it. But I was worried about a) being found homeless with a family and b) the irony that they would refund me with their " auto currency" conversion process and I would just end up getting hit twice. I tried googling and others had similar questions but never an answer so I left it.

  • 

    burningrage on 15/02/2024 - 12:33

    +4

    If there is one thing good about Hotels.com is that it is in AUD AND you are guaranteed not to incur International Transaction Fee which is something Agoda / Booking.Com cannot guarantee.

    With Paypal, it always default to their own rates. You need to change it to FX.

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      SaberX on 15/02/2024 - 15:49

      I get that PayPal requires toggling. But any online shopping I've done shows you the AUD price (as it's applied auto currency) at which point you can toggle it back to Japan yen. It's abit hidden but I've done it multiple times in that prompt screen (abit hidden for newbies). In the booking.com case I don't think logging into paypal.com to apply to the booking.com ever had any options to toggle.

      Hence why I wanted to check if it's setup to catch people or I truly stuffed up and missed it. The auto subscriptions in paypal has the toggle but I find that extremely disingenuous if you sign up your booking.com payment and then have to login to the full PayPal website just to manage it and toggle it off.

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  PissLUR on 15/02/2024 - 10:51

  And don't use their pay later option. It's a rip off.

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    SaberX on 15/02/2024 - 15:50

    PayPal's pay later? Or booking.com?

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      PissLUR on 15/02/2024 - 16:03

      +1

      oh sorry. it is agoda's.

      • 

        psj2019 on 15/02/2024 - 19:20

        Agreed! They add in the T&C's 8dii that they add a 5% booking fee. Always try to pay now if you can using Agoda, or just know that it'll be more expensive after.

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          Autonomic on 16/02/2024 - 12:43

          @psj2019: I'm suspicious of the pay later option too, but even in the T&C you linked the 5% fee is only charged if the display currency and charged currency are different. This is the same fee for both pay now and pay later.

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  Minimum chips on 15/02/2024 - 12:11

  Sounds like you added paypal as a middle-man to the transaction so they took a cut by offering a bad rate. They don't offer a free service, because they're a business.

  It's an international payment in two currencies, so someone has to do the conversion. If you pay with card, your bank can do it and charge you a fee, or do it and skim a little with their rate, or do it at for free with the intention of keeping you as a happy customer/because they agreed to that in the first place to entice you.

  If paypal is doing the conversion they're going to try to make money. Why would they offer a great rate and no fee for their service? Especially as some people will choose their service because they are not comfortable/able to make the transaction through their bank or credit card issuer.

  • 

    SaberX on 15/02/2024 - 15:55

    PayPal has always been a middleman and there's always been the ability to use their service without being ripped off by their auto currency conversion though. Sure it's been around for ages but this is one time I don't recall them asking or giving any choice at time of payment (when booking via booking.com)?

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  z0s0 on 15/02/2024 - 13:16

  I presume you have Booking.com set as an "pre approved biller" or similar in your PayPal account. Even though you would likely have set it to "charge my card in the original currency; do not convert", Paypal recently deployed some code which reset those preferences (back into their favour of course). I ended up winning a chargeback against them (PayPal) recently for this. I suggest you do the same.

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    SaberX on 15/02/2024 - 15:37

    I cannot or do not know - how to check if it was a pre approved biller? I went into automatic subscriptions and sure enough the auto currency conversion was triggered. Other sellers I'd bought once off were in auto subscriptions but we're in the "do not convert " toggle. I would have never chosen to pay in PayPal's currency conversion rates…so either booking.com did not ask (hence its a disingenuous way of auto toggling you in if so) or as you said PayPal pulled the rug.

    How do you do a charge back though ? Through your credit card company? I'm about to check in to the hotel that the booking relates to….and it's an indirect payment via PayPal to booking.com… it's not quite an incorrect charge in its entirety… Do you still dispute it with your bank?

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    SaberX on 15/02/2024 - 20:02

    I've sent a customer service chat message for a refund. Would love to know how you do a charge back. All the charge backs I've gotten in options wise on PayPal's disputes seem geared towards being over or wrongly charged by the merchant. In this case the merchant (hotel) was great and it's mainly the PayPal I want to cough up the difference in automatically currency converting me in e.g. $40 AUD on a circa $697 AUD charge.

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      streetsmart on 08/03/2024 - 00:24

      I was just a victim of this too, ring up Customer Service, they gave me Paypal credits for the difference due to exchange rate. They did honor it seeing it was the first time it happened in my account. I paid AUD 18 more for an NZ booking. Now I know I should not use Paypal for Booking.com