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Will Air Canada Refund Charges for Tourist Permit?


Ezzie

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I just booked a flight from Toronto to Guadalajara via Mexico City. I noticed that in the breakdown of taxes there is a line item of $27.18 CDN for Mexico Tourist Tax. I called an agent and asked for it to be refunded (since I have a Mexican residency status) and was told they are unable to refund it and to contact their refund dept. Has anyone on here been successful in getting this charge refunded? If I had used my Mexican address instead of my Canadian address, would I still have been charged this fee or is it linked to the passport I use (Canadian)?

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When I have bought tickets I usually book online then put it on hold. Then I call the airline to issue the tickets on the reservation booked and tell them I am a resident. They don't charge me a booking fee for calling because of the circumstances. You need to press the phone button for "international." Then they don't charge the fee on the original ticket. Working with refunds after the fact is almost not worth the agrivation. If you fly the same airline frequently, join their mileage program and make sure you fill in that you are a resident of Mexico.

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  • 1 month later...

Just a follow up on this subject. Air Canada has refunded the charge for the Tourist Permit of $27.18 CDN. Flight was July 2, refund issued July 8. I had to email them a scan of my Resident temporal card.

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Just went through this with Westjet. Booked my ticket and paid for my ticket online, then called them re refund when I got to Canada. They told me they would not give me a refund, but would give me a Westjet credit "this time", but to give them a call next time before I booked if I wanted to not pay the tourism tax.

When I used to fly Alaska, they actually had forms you could fill out at the boarding gate with your residency info and they would post the tourism tax back to your credit card. Really wish Westjet and Air Canada would do this, as I don't have a house phone in Mex, and the "toll-free" airline #s don't work from a Mex. cellphone, so calling them when I book costs me a small fortune since I get put on hold for a long time.

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Money grab for who? Westjet does not actually charge more to book through an agent on the phone if you have an issue like this or any other problem booking online. Telcel receives the benefit of the extra expense I incur when doing this.

Because it's "opt out" baloney. How is the general public supposed to know, for one thing. But more importantly, if they are gathering taxes and not turning them over to whomever should be collecting them, I'd have to say first off, that's illegal. If they are properly turning them over, then a great deal of money is being made by authorities on the sly, and that's gotta be illegal too. Just because it's a loophole doesn't make it more righteous than Wall Street's horse-caca mortgage tactics. You know they know exactly what they are doing, and to have them tell you that "next time" you won't be so lucky is hogwash.

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I filled out an Alaska refund form at LAX on the way back ..... and when further checking on it they told me they don't charge for FMM if the flight starts in Mexico

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I was trying to book a flight with United Airlines using their reward program.

No problem but in the breakdown of the taxes, I saw that they were charging me the Tourist Tax even though my profile says I live in Mexico.

I contacted their call centre and the agent manually removed the Tourist Tax and there was no charge to book through them which normally there is. Because of my residency issue, they won't charge customers to book over the phone with one of their agents.

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