American Airlines Stops Accepting Cash In Argentina
American Airlines will only accept credit and debit cards, travel vouchers, and electronic funds transfers and their 3 city ticket offices in Argentina. That’s a change that went into effect this past week.
American Airlines serves Buenos Aires from Dallas, New York JFK, and Miami producing 400 million seat miles roundtrip this month across 307 one-way flights. Their reach in the country is of course more limited having lost their LATAM partnership to Delta shortly before the pandemic.
With 185% inflation in the country, accepting cash is tough.
Here’s how it looks to pay for a group dinner (and not a particularly expensive one, at that!)
Paying the bill is a whole event! First the guest counts out the bills into piles of 10,000 pesos, then the waiter recounts to make sure it’s right pic.twitter.com/9g2RFWNj5M
— Devon ☀️ (@devonzuegel) December 28, 2023
It’s somewhat odd to be making this decision now since the situation isn’t new. It’s almost as if someone in Dallas noticed media coverage of Argentina’s inflation since Milei was elected. What’s odd though is that payment restrictions in Venezuela made sense after the government there effectively seized airline cash, preventing repatriation of funds out of the country. That’s literally the opposite of the Milei program which is extremely welcoming of foreign airlines.
