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General about payments in Chile (1 Viewer)

njlarsen

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Dear All,
thought I would share an experience we had several times regarding larger payments in Chile during our recent trip, mainly for hotels and car rentals.

When asking for price on this type of items, you will often receive a quote in US$. It will pay for you to ask very specifically if you will be charged in US$ using your credit card or if the charge will be in CLP (Chilean Pesos). If the latter, then ask to get the quote in CLP!

One example: I had online received a quote of about US$700 for a rental of a 4wd in Punta Arenas. Due to a couple of additional charges, one of which I knew about and the other not, the final sum became US$723. However, when paying, the charge was made in CLP, and the calculation of how much was with a much too high exchange rate, so I ended up paying about US$831 instead of what the quote was. I have complained to the international mother of the company, and have not heard back yet. Two of our car rentals were prepaid using http://www.carrentals.co.uk/: this was a very smooth process, prices were reasonable and included full insurance etc, and the payment was in UK-pounds: I recommend this because that takes all the uncertainty of currency and what you really are going to pay out of the equation.

When dealing with hotels, it is common that you get a quote in USD and also are paying in US$: as a non-Chilean paying in foreign currency, you are supposed to be getting the room without paying VAT (tax). But on a couple of occasions where I had prepaid over the web before leaving home, the charge was actually made in CLP, and again, the exchange rate was not all that favorable to me ;)

Hope this helps somebody. I don't have a problem paying the agreed amount for something, it is when I feel someone is trying to cheat me out of an extra 15% that I get p.....

Cheers
Niels
 
Update: I have just received an Email from the car company that they are refunding about 10% of what I had paid: that brings down the overcharge to a much more reasonable amount.

Cheers
Niels
 
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