Is it legal to use a US booking site for United Airlines

[dac123]

I have 8 travel electronic travel certificated priced in US dollars which has a sterling equivalent. Because of the shift in exchange rate if I book the 8 flights to Orlando on the UK site I would have extra to pay, which I would rather not do. When I go online onto united.com it defaults to the US dollar priced web site. On this site the travel certificates more than cover the cost with about $260 left over for future use, a total swing of about $400 between the 2 sites. I was told that if I try to use a UK credit card the US system will reject it because of the address. In this case I would have nothing to pay as the travel certificates would cover the cost and I should not need to enter the CC in payment details. The question is if the system accepts the booking would I be doing anything illegal.

[Bozza]

I've booked flights on US sites before and never had an issue.

[dac123]

Apparently some of the Airlines have software that will push you back to the UK site when you enter the card address. I know they do it for commercial reasons, as I said its a question of legality. I tried booking flights to New Zealand using a VPN and getting someone who lived there to book them as the round trip was a lot less, if starting in NZ. The booking system auto changes to the booking site of the departure airport to stop us getting the lower price.

[carolmc]

I've booked many many times with Delta through their US site and never had any problem whatsoever.

[duchy]

Originally Posted by dac123

Apparently some of the Airlines have software that will push you back to the UK site when you enter the card address. I know they do it for commercial reasons, as I said its a question of legality. I tried booking flights to New Zealand using a VPN and getting someone who lived there to book them as the round trip was a lot less, if starting in NZ. The booking system auto changes to the booking site of the departure airport to stop us getting the lower price.

See more...

I had this with Delta when booking reward seats .
I just called Delta on the US number and booked.
I’ve also booked with Orbitz.com to get a better dollar fare too with various US carriers, they have no issue with my U.K. card , whereas the Expedia.com site does.

[YorkshireT]

The only potential illegality is the airlines trying to stop you- and whether that breaches international competition laws etc.
Europe clamped down on such practises internally but that was more to do with the common market.

[GrumpyDopey&Me]

I think once you enter your details address etc you will get pushed out to the uk site

[dac123]

For normal booking you just enter an e-mail address, its when you enter your credit card billing address it will transfer you to the UK site. In my case I won't be doing that as the electronic vouchers cover the price. if I need to enter a payment method regardless, then I will use PayPal details to avoid the billing address problem. It looks like it will work that's why I asked am I doing anything illegal or is it against their terms and conditions. I can't find anything that says it is, or am I missing a potential problem later.

[chmurf]

Make sure that you're covered re:insurance when using paypal to pay for your tickets. Using your credit card (if applicable) may give you better coverage

there is nothing preventing you from purchasing on a foreign website.

Some irlines, though, will redirect you to their site pretaining to the origin airport (for example, if you booked a flight from Germany to the US, on the UK website, it would send you to the German site and bill you in Euros) but not all airlines/site do that.

[chelynnah]

If you pay with PayPal then you are not covered by section 75 or chargeback because your contract is with PayPal, not the flight provider

Also any travel insurance from your card is unlikely to be covered because you didn’t pay for the trip with your card.

I would be very careful about using PayPal for that. I usually don’t use it for anything I might need insured by the card, and definitely not for large purchases