diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 279c4d7a..a0cdbfd6 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 byobu (4.37) unreleased; urgency=low
 
-  * UNRELEASED
+  * usr/lib/byobu/ec2_cost: LP: #862655
+    - fix ec2 cost estimator on OpenStack instances by falling back to
+      the approximation calculator
 
  -- Dustin Kirkland <kirkland@ubuntu.com>  Tue, 27 Sep 2011 10:59:05 -0400
 
diff --git a/usr/lib/byobu/ec2_cost b/usr/lib/byobu/ec2_cost
index 74cfe6a8..31c9de4d 100755
--- a/usr/lib/byobu/ec2_cost
+++ b/usr/lib/byobu/ec2_cost
@@ -36,12 +36,16 @@ __ec2_cost() {
 	# Try to use metadata service
 	if metadata_available; then
 		zone=$(wget -q -O - http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/placement/availability-zone)
+		if [ ! -r "$BYOBU_PREFIX/share/$PKG/ec2/rates.${zone%?}" ]; then
+			zone="us-east-1d"
+		fi
 		. "$BYOBU_PREFIX/share/$PKG/ec2/rates.${zone%?}"
 		type=$(wget -q -O - http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/instance-type | $SED -e "s/\./_/g")
 		eval rate="\$$type"
 		file_to_stat="$BYOBU_RUN_DIR/cache.$BYOBU_BACKEND/ec2_cost.instance_type"
 		[ -f "$file_to_stat" ] || wget -q -O "$file_to_stat" http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/instance-type
-	else
+	fi
+	if [ -z "$rate" ]; then
 		. "$BYOBU_PREFIX/share/$PKG/ec2/rates."*
 		# Count CPUs, Memory, Architecture, hours
 		cpu=$(grep -c "^processor.*:" /proc/cpuinfo) || cpu=1