UK Credit Card Surcharges

From tomorrow (13/1/18), UK companies may no longer apply surcharges to customers who wish to pay by credit or debit card. I believe PayPal is also affected. Viking tells me that they have therefore discontinued the 2% surcharge for payment by credit card. Hooray! They are obviously on the ball, this ball anyway.

This will not only simplify payment, but will also afford card protection for purchases, at no cost to the cardholder. Those with "cash-back" cards will save a penny or two when they pay Viking. Until the fares go up? I wonder how the airlines will handle this.

This will obviously hit the companies for whom the card surcharge was a significant income stream. They will now be looking for ways to recoup this dried-up source of revenue, so our benefit might be short-lived. HMRC has already stopped accepting credit card payments, and if they can do this, others will follow. DVLA "earns" $8.5million per year from charging £2.50 per transaction. Stop card use? Simples!

Just thought that some of you might have missed this one.