BA Increase Credit Card Fees

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  • Anonymous
    Guest

    TimFitzgeraldTC
    Participant

    BA are increasing credit card fees to £5 as of today as per the below:

    The payment fee in the UK is increasing from £4.50 to £5.00 on 19 August 2014. The last increase in the fee was in March 2009. Following a review we know that the fee makes a contribution to BA’s card costs. We do not recover all the cost. The payment fee applies to all bookings where the BA merchant agreements are used either on ba.com or through the travel trade. It is possible to avoid the fee by using a debit card which is free of charge.

    I guess the other airlines will quickly follow suit.


    RichardB
    Participant

    I have several debit cards but still have to pay the credit card surcharge. This is because BA won’t accept cards which are BOTH credit and debit. These are common in europe. At an ATM or chip and pin terminal the machine will ask “credit” or “debit”. But on the BA site even if I choose “debit” then the system recognizes the card as being a credit card (which it is since it’s both) and refuses to let me pay unless I choose “credit” instead of ‘debit”.
    BA are unable/unwilling to fix their system, probably because these kind of combined credit/debit cards are not issued in the UK. Trying to do a phone booking has the same problem, the payment is not accepted if trying to treat the card as a debit card.
    Using this kind of card in the UK is quite fun since shop assistants don’t even know the chip and pin terminal might ask this kind of question and wonder what is going on with the menu choices.


    BA744fan
    Participant

    Another day. Another fee increase. Are BA going out of their way to alienate their loyal customers? They seem determined to destroy what is left of their crumbling reputation as a premium carrier.


    AspirationalFlyer
    Participant

    Another annoying thing is that the charge is still levied even when using a BA branded credit card, including the UK issued BA American Express. I’m sure BA is not long alone in doing this, however, I have always thought it would be a good cardholder benefit to avoid these charges (in particular, when using a card with a high annual fee).
    Strangely BA do not seem to levy this charge when charging for an upgrade using Manage My Booking.


    SimonS1
    Participant

    Not sure if the other airlines will follow Tim. I don’t ever recall paying a CC fee on Emirates (nor a fee to select my seat for that matter) and I don’t recall paying on Cathay either.

    For the amount involved I would have thought it a good marketing spin.


    AMcWhirter
    Participant

    Tim-

    As SimonS1 is saying, not all airlines charge a fee. And also some airlines charge different amounts in different markets.

    QF is criticsed in Australia for its high cc fees. For international flights QF charges AU$30. But when I last checked in December it has no fee at all in the UK.

    Likewise LX matches the BA price in the UK but charges different amounts in other European countries.

    Book a long-haul LX ticket here in the UK and the cc charge is GBP4.50. But purchase the same ticket in German (whose national airline, Lufthansa, owns LX) then the fee rises to Euros 18 or GBP14.

    Book a long-haul ticket in LX’s home market and the fee is a hefty CHF 22 or GBP14.


    BA744fan
    Participant

    Charge a flat percentage and everyone accepts it as we all know the vendor is just passing on the cost charged by the card provider.

    Charge a fixed fee and it immediately gets the end users back up.

    The solution seems obvious.


    travelsforfun
    Participant

    It’s clear that is a straightforward case of airlines relative market dominance; the home market carrier decides what it wants to charge and then other airlines can choose to match them or undercut them.

    Indeed, for BA, in many (all?) European markets outside the UK, there is no credit card fee. [This is a question of the departure point of the ticket (fare being priced in that currency) rather than the location of the cardholder.]


    TimFitzgeraldTC
    Participant

    Several Airlines charge the £4.50 credit card fee (though not Emirates). As far as I can remember they include AF,KL,LH,OS,LX,IB,SK (possibly UA/DL/VS/AA) – but trying to find a definitive list. These are the ones I’ll expect to see increase to £5 as well. The above is not 100% accurate. I never have to put a CC in as form of payment so these charges aren’t relevant to me anyway.

    Some airlines actually just put 2% on. In other markets as Alex points out the charges may not apply. But in the UK this is the case with charges for BA and others mentioned.

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