Bitcoin Forum

Apart from the 2 Airlines that accept bitcon directly for tickets

http://www.coindesk.com/air-lituanica-shows-bitcoins-use-travel-taking-flight/

ALL airlines that accept debit/credit cards for payment..(which is about 100%) can issue tickets with payment via Xapo bitcoin loaded debit card.

Note ..Xapo..PLEASE get those cards delivered faster!!!!!!!

Cost comparison

1Apart from $ purchases in the USA which will incur an additional 3% cost. If you pay  in local/ home / non US$ currency there is effectively a 3% cost to use Xapo but it may well be the case that the $ ticket price and the local currency ticket price has a similar ( or worse) price differential as airlines make the majority of their payments ( fuel/airport fees etc) in $'s so it is VERY likely that in this scenario using Xapo is equal or better to using local non $ denominated currency.

2 If you are buying a ticket in a foreign country and you are $/Euro or UK pound (card/income) base the transaction fees and exchange rate spread charged to you will 90% + of the time be equal or worse than the 3% Xapo cost.

So Once you FINALLY get a Xapo card any airline ticket may be purchased and that price will be competitive or better depending which country you are buying it in and what is your home currency.!

Examples

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2011/jan/23/booking-flight-airline-websites

Advantage of buying return ticket from the foreign Country you are traveling to

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7105307


That actual works as well, don't book anything from South Africa I found out as I was booking my mates flights. You could knock several hundred off by going through an Australian or UK proxy. I believe from memory it was the same agency as well. Just changing the domain brought up vastly different prices on the same flights.

But no as I mentioned above lots of holiday destinations have cheap tickets inbound, but out bound are expensive. I first noticed it travelling from London to Croatia.

It was like $200 flight to Split, but the flight home was double or triple. I hopped on a proxy, and found I could get the reverse deal from Split to London. $200 to London, $600 back home to split. So I started gaming the system.

The agencies are hedging on the fact you have to take the return flight. So they coerce you into the cheap flight to location X, but claw the money back with the return flight which I guess the vast majority of people have to take.

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It's a good thing to hear bitcoin is also getting stick to the airlines.Soon very soon we are getting to pay with bitcoin in our nearest stores

That's an excellent news. I am expecting a great hike in BTC rates!

I am happy about my investment I did!!

Another good hope for bitcoin investors, hopefully bitcoin will rise now!

I don't think this quite counts as buying something with bitcoin. You could make the same argument if you were to say that you can buy widgets with bitcoin by first selling your bitcoin on an exchange then using that fiat to buy the widgets. The fact that you first need to convert your bitcoin to fiat means that you are really paying via fiat, not bitcoin.

This is all that xapo is doing when you pay with their debit card.  

wow, want to buy two tickets for Havana!!! 8) 8)

Great, good thing! Those meta-services are a great thing, we can buy from various sources of our choice by simply using such a service! This is a great way to spread bitcoin adoption or at least the possibility of using bitcoin to a lot of people at once!

Great news, this can surely help to spread the word about bitcoins and increase its adoption.

I been waiting forever for those xapo cards to get delivered, the ones who got them were the one who advertised them on twitter and facebook, this what they said to me in a email.

Your "almost" is a very exaggerated word.

Um, can't you already use this bitcoin debit card anywhere where you can use a normal debit card? I thought that was the point of it so I don't know why you just specified airlines.

It's a big step. I guess it will rise the demand for bitcoin, consequently its price.

Seeing almost any airline now accepting bitcoin is a huge step, many people use airlines and once they realise that you can use bitcoin to on almost all airlines it may help boost the amount of people who wish to use it even if it's just for this purpose.

The best thing to do is list those airlines that accepts bitcoin as their payment

That means bitcoin is marching towards an option for payment to be accepted by the majority, great.

Air Baltic and Air Lituanica accept bitcoins directly from ur wallet and I assume they handle conversion to fiat at their preferred exchange.

All other airlines ( 99% accept a visa or masterard)  accept payment using your Xapo bitcoin loaded card and therefore you are buying the ticket using your bitcoin but they are accepting its fiat value as do almost ALL other merchants as they immediately convert to fiat in the majority of cases. The list of those airlines that accept Xapo bitcoin loaded card is here ( 99% if not all)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airlines

The point being that you are now able to easily buy/pay from your bitcoins at the swipe of the card or online. The difference between the 2 groups is that the first group has the option of not immediately converting to fiat but the other collects in fiat and would need to buy bitcoin in the unlikely event that they really want to keep some .

For the purchaser there is probably a small difference in the cost of using xapo to buy the ticket or paying directly from the bitcoin wallet , but this may not be much as the bitcoin price of the first 2 Airlines may not be the same as the $ or local currency fiat price and the Xapo bitcoin price may be equal or better depending on exchange rates of local currency on the day of purchase.

It is good signal. Paying with BTC will save customers' money, like exchange fee to local currency, which will attract customers to pay by BTC. I think others industry will offer BTC payment to attract customers.  

This is a very great news. So is it for btc only?

I wish i had enough btc to get holiday tickets in btc  :'(

That's not exactly the same as buying something with Bitcoin. XAPO is basically like exchanging Bitcoin for fiat and paying with fiat. There are some airlines literally accepting Bitcoin though. Hopefully others will follow suit in the near future.

flying to Boston from Paris on Friday, can anyone suggest any good options for that in terms of buying the ticket with Bitcoin??? ???

I think we need to accept that currently the world revolves around fiat..there is no escaping that fact..99.9% of commercial transaction in bitcoin get converted to fiat eventually. whether it be remittance, purchasing goods ,paying bills, speculation or buying airline tickets.

Many are hoping for the day when bitcoin received for payment will be held just like any other form of currency eg  dollars received for payment in Japan held in a dollar account for the long/medium term.

In order to get to that point being able to pay with bitcoin whether directly  to an airline or merchant who then converts to fiat or using a Xapo type card which converts at time of purchase is part of the journey ( and is really the same process but in a different order and timing of conversion)  until it achieves its status as a currency to be held on to.

The advantage of using Xapo instead of dollars or dollar denominated cards is a) it can be competitive or even cheaper to use if purchasing outside a dollar denominated country b) you are still holding on to bitcoins in your "account" and will reap any reward from increase in fiat value of the bitcoin. Conversely you are exposed to adverse moves in the fiat price so this is for bitcoin bullls not bears.c) you are actively promoting bitcoin in order to eventually get to the stage where more merchants accept bitcoin directly and do not convert to fiat and hold those bitcoins as they would any other foreign currency of strength.. eg in Argentina dollars will not be converted to local currency with a 40% inflation rate but kept in dollars or dollar accounts. the big advantage for bitcoin in this case is that if currency controls are introduced where you cant move dollars out unless you smuggle them bitcooin can circumvent that problem with ease.

+ 1 most ppl here dont even know the fact is that its extremely difficult to have foreign currency bank account to apply for a CC in that currency. Bitcoin services like XAPO will solve this with ease. You now can buy airline tickets from another foreign domain!

Hmmm better yet there should be an agent that accept btc and buy tickets from whatever countries that result the cheapest flight?

This one is believable compared to "almost" any airline thing.

BTCTalk should do this. Look for an airline agent that will help us all here.

It looks like that is already in BETA

https://btctrip.com/

http://www.coinspeaker.com/tag/expedia-bitcoin/

in addition Expedia who already accept bitcoin for hotels is likely to expand acceptance to flights when they are ready.

Never heard of anyone in my relative who flew from one place to another using only BTC.

Is Qantas Airways accepting bitcoin too?

haha I wish, doesn't say anything on their website though..

No..but they do accept Xapo mastercards..as do most of the others....We await the day that they all accept bitcoin directy but Xapo allows bitcoin to be used to buy a ticket from Qantas...Qantas does immediately receive fiat but for the purchaser ..he is effectively using bitcoin.