yes, though it is unclear to me if it is a pre-order exclusive or you simply get for free something that would otherwise cost you some $$$$ .
Anyone know ?
Hi @EdamllamaB,
The Canadair CL-415 is part of the Standard edition. If you don’t pre-order, and wait for the release of MSFS 2024 before purchase, you’ll still get the aircraft.
You get the plane in 2020 by preordering 2024, that is the “exclusive offer” by preordering the game
OK, so you get a chance to preview the plane in the old sim by doing a pre-order?
Basically, yes!
Yes, you will get the CL-415 water bomber to use in MSFS 2020.
I wanted to preorder fs24, and saw that just because I’m not from the USA but europe, I would have to pay !!60!! dollars more (considering currency exchange course) That, dear microsoft, is insane and unfair. Make it 10 dollars difference for all i care, even 15, but 60?? I can purchase an entire AAA title for that price difference.
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US do not include taxes in their published prices. You have to take this into account before doing your math.
We in europe are used to pay what is ahown on the tag, so comparing can be a bit confusing…
None of this justified a 6 0 DOLLAR price difference. Just with the price difference alone i could purchase a second copy of the base version atop the aviators edition.
Elaborate on what edition you are comparing.
If you.go for the aviator edition the tax alone can be the 60$, depending on your country in europe.
It would not be fair to blame MS for the taxes our gouvernents ask.
Hi, I just compared the prices of the Premium Deluxe edition of MSFS 2024.
So in the US it s 129,99$, but in the European Union its is 140,01 € which equals about 156,41 $, that is 20,32% more expensive than inside USA.
In Germany this includes 19% VAT where in US probably the sale tax for digital products probably coming on top of the US price (if applicable, depending of the state - please correct me about the US sale taxes if I’m wrong) is a maximum of 9%, often lower. So the EU price is minimum abot 12% higher than the US price. So why it is like this? It is not satisfying for EU customers.
I payed 220€ in Austria for the aviator edition. We do have 20%VAT on these kind of products: so this means that the price I have to compare with the 200USD is actually 220€ - 20% = ~183€. 183€ are ~204USD, so it seems to be priced ok here, just 4USD more seems to be a rounding error and is ok for me … I can‘t do to much about the VAT 
You answered your question yourself.
The VAT in Europe is around 20%.
So you have to deduct the taxes from the EUR price.
If the price is 140€ including tax, then the European price before tax is 117€.
The exchange rate when prices were determined should have been somewhere near 1:1,1.
So 117€ would be something like 129 $
And that’s exactly the price in the US.
You cannot blame MS that taxes are higher in Europe.
MS sets up their price, then translates it to various currencies with a small adaption to marketing standards.
And on top of that price, the various countries add their taxes. Nothing that any company can control.
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Totally agree!
Pre tax prices between US and EU vary only marginally.
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Yeah, taxes are fun. In America, we all pay different taxes too like you mentioned, but there’s even a bigger kicker that makes it worse; I’m one of the luckiest ones… because digital goods aren’t taxed for my billing address/state. So I pay $200 flat while someone else could be paying an extra 40 bucks even though they live in the same country and just 10 miles to the west across state lines.
Wanna know what grinds my gears though? Aerosoft having the 5,000 limited edition copies when I live outside the USA during this time of the year. I’d have to pay $416.68 because I’m paying not only a bad FOREX rate (because of the euro since I’m not shipping to the USA), but also VAT, import fees of 12% (double tax) since it’s over 10,000 Philippine pesos, plus 110 euros in shipping. So, imagine having to physically purchase something and then shipping it to places where the average Joe in the country makes less than $400 bucks a month.
I want the physical version, but it’s not worth the extra fees for a couple of items and I don’t want to wait until I’m back in the US for next summer to even play with it (which would mean having to buy 2 copies). Just gonna use the extra 400 bucks I’d be saving on the shipping and putting it towards IAE on Star Citizen (gonna buy the Best In Show bundle if it’s available and a Pioneer (already have an Idris-K and Javelin (still debating on the Kraken tho))).
Here is my 2 pence worth:
The price is the same (in number terms) in USD, GPB and EU. i.e. the aviator edition is $200, £200 and €200.
The VAT free price in the UK and EU is £167 and €167. (VAT in the Euro zone varies between 19% to 21% – outside the Euro zone it’s 17% to 27% – I used 20%)
The current exchange rates of £1.00 to $1.34 and €1.00 to $1.20 makes the relative price difference:
| UK | %+11.7 |
| EU | %+0.0 |
You’re welcome, sPK
- Obviously the result would vary as the exchange rate varies.
- This result is the same for each version
- The higher the VAT rate the cheaper the effective price (Hungary VAT 27% gives %-5.8).* * Businesses usually build in a margin on the price they sell abroad to take into account exchange rate changes. Maybe MS is wishing it had built a bigger margin on the EU price but would they have wanted to set the Aviator edition to €204.99? They could also have taken £5 off the UK prices
Breakdown of calculations for Aviator are $200:
UK VAT 20%
Euro zone VAT 20% (Varies between 19% and 21%)
Exchange rate (at time of writing):
USD to GBP $1.34
USD to EU $1.20
VAT US Cost
free Equiv. Diff %
==== ====== ======
UK £167 $223 +11.7
Euro zone €167 $200 +0.0
Probably you have a friend or relative living in Germany for example working at an US airbase like Ramstein, who can buy it for you sparing some bucks?
But I’ve heard that the collector’s edition is already sold out…
For me a digital version is sufficient.