Difficulty booking Air India Express flights online

iker

I'm in Washington and have been trying to book a round trip airfare from Jaipur to Dubai on Wednesday, July 9.

I enter in all my personal details, as well as credit card information and in the final stages (as a confirmation should be produced), an error message appears indicating that my credit card has not been accepted.

It's a US-based credit card. I tried calling Air India Express' telephone numbers in India, but also to no avail. No one answers.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Jim

machadinha

I don't know, except that many Indian airlines don't accept foreign credit cards for online booking. I suppose going through an (on- or offline) agent can solve this.

The problem gets regularly discussed on this site, so you can search around for it. If you scroll to the bottom of this page, you'll find a listing of "similar threads." Opening any of those will again feature a list of similar threads at bottom, and so on and so forth. It's an easy way to navigate the site.

Try also this sticky thread in the sub-forum you're in: Foreign credit card acceptance. (domestic flights)

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iker

thanks for your response.

yes, I've seen other threads, but they do nothing to definitively indicate why my credit card is not being accepted.

argonaut

i can't even get to the credit card page! it hangs on the 'confirm flight' page... trying to get to Bangkok from Kolkata!

iker

Hi Argonaut.

It turns out that it was impossible to book this from the US.

I ended up staying at the Oberoi in New Delhi.

I went to the concierge and told them about the flight, and asked for their assistance. Their travel office didn't have the flight in their system, but because I had taken a print-out of the itinerary I wished to book, they were able to contact the airline and purchase the ticket using cash (in INR only), which necessitated my having to make a special trip to the ATM.

Air India Express doesn't accept non-Indian-based credit cards.

After all is said and done, it was worth the hassle. I didn't have to take a train from Jaipur to Delhi and do the whole transfer to the int'l airport to Dubai. And the airline was fairly nice. Plane was brand new and seats very comfortable. Flight was also punctual.

So what could have easily taken one full day, took 3 hours or so.

Jim

ryler78

After reading this my first response was wtf? Then, after thinking about all that I have read on this site, I understand it's just India.

lyndy

Hi there

Sometimes the Air India Express site will not allow bookings in advance more than 60 days!

Mid Feb 2009, I booked a Kolkata/Bangkok April 17 flight for a friend on my visa card, without a hitch. It depends on the day as to whether the card will be accepted. Have many times had issues with indian railways & sometimes with Air Deccan (now Kingfisher) accepting my Aussie visa card but it worked on Air India Express. The site is a pain in the bum though but we kept trying various dates and finally we were able to book. It was, by far the cheapest airline to Thailand for our dates.