Is there a fee for using a credit card?

[57eric]

Ask Cunard says yes! "As is common practise in the travel industry, a charge of 1.5% will be made where a credit card is used. This charge will be confirmed to you when you make your payment. As an alternative, debit cards are free to use."

 

Huh? I have NEVER paid a fee to use a credit card for travel. Is this a UK thing? Should US passengers avoid booking directly?

 

Thanks.

[orchestrapal]

Ask Cunard says yes! "As is common practise in the travel industry, a charge of 1.5% will be made where a credit card is used. This charge will be confirmed to you when you make your payment. As an alternative, debit cards are free to use."

Huh? I have NEVER paid a fee to use a credit card for travel. Is this a UK thing? Should US passengers avoid booking directly?

Thanks.

 

Find a good TA and ask them. We have never and never will pay a CC fee , nor dress formal.😄

[Chart Room Princess]

I always book direct with Cunard and have never noticed an extra fee. US citizen too.

[BlueRiband]

Charging a credit card fee seems to be a common practice in the UK. If you can hold off to booking until next year the fee would be illegal: UK to ban companies from charging credit card fees

[thinfool]

In the US you pay the fee on every transaction that you make. This has been true for years and years and years.

 

The trick is that it is included, not itemized or revealed. Other countries have different regulations that make it necessary to specifically reveal the credit card fee.

 

The article cited above includes this very true statement..."But some experts said banning surcharges will simply lead businesses to push up their prices."

[Summergee]

We have found that we are charged if we use the card to pay for the deposit or to pay the balance, but we are not charged for the on board bill payment (UK).

[abefroman329]

In the US you pay the fee on every transaction that you make. This has been true for years and years and years.

 

The trick is that it is included, not itemized or revealed. Other countries have different regulations that make it necessary to specifically reveal the credit card fee.

 

The article cited above includes this very true statement..."But some experts said banning surcharges will simply lead businesses to push up their prices."

 

In the US the merchant pays the interchange fee, not the customer.

[bluemarble]

Ask Cunard says yes! "As is common practise in the travel industry, a charge of 1.5% will be made where a credit card is used. This charge will be confirmed to you when you make your payment. As an alternative, debit cards are free to use."

 

Huh? I have NEVER paid a fee to use a credit card for travel. Is this a UK thing? Should US passengers avoid booking directly?

 

Thanks.

 

Yes, this is a UK thing. This is one of those cases where one has to be careful about trying to apply information found on ask.cunard.com to the US. The information found on ask.cunard.com is specific to the UK when it comes to things such as this that are related to booking terms and conditions.

 

Regards,

John

[57eric]

Yes, this is a UK thing. This is one of those cases where one has to be careful about trying to apply information found on ask.cunard.com to the US. The information found on ask.cunard.com is specific to the UK when it comes to things such as this that are related to booking terms and conditions.

 

Regards,

John

 

Thanks. And yet "Your on board account will be charged in US$." Of course, future cruise deposits are made in Sterling.

 

My head hurts.

[thinfool]

In the US the merchant pays the interchange fee, not the customer.

 

 

 

You don't think the fee is included in the price?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[bluemarble]

Thanks. And yet "Your on board account will be charged in US$." Of course, future cruise deposits are made in Sterling.

 

My head hurts.

 

I have never done the future cruise deposit thing, but I suspect this is another case of the information found on ask.cunard.com being specific to the UK. When ask.cunard.com states "Each Future Cruise Deposit costs £50 per person", that does not necessarily apply to the US. My understanding from reading other posts here is that future cruise deposits are $300 for the US. Of course I'll gladly stand corrected if I have that wrong.

 

By the way, have you noticed that Cunard discourages access to ask.cunard.com from the US by redirecting references to "ask.cunard.com" to "www.cunard.com" instead? If you have the complete URL to a specific question or category of questions on ask.cunard.com, that will work from the US. But attempts to access the ask.cunard.com home page via just the URL http://ask.cunard.com does not work from the US. All we have for the US are the feable FAQ pages found at http://www.cunard.com/frequent-questions/faq/.

 

Regards,

John

[Underwatr]

You don't think the fee is included in the price?

Yes, regardless of whether you pay by credit card or check (which isn't the case in the UK (assuming they even use checks any more)), the price reflects all of the line's costs.

 

As long as you don't claim that they could drop prices if they stopped accepting credit cards for booking payments...

[ToadOfToadHall]

Yes, regardless of whether you pay by credit card or check (which isn't the case in the UK (assuming they even use checks any more)), the price reflects all of the line's costs.

 

As long as you don't claim that they could drop prices if they stopped accepting credit cards for booking payments...

 

A cheque ? How quaint.

 

But (as you have pointed out) even with the new UK law, companies can still quote a certain price and then offer a "discount" if you pay by debit card. A lot of news sites spotted that option about 1 millisecond after our cretinous government made their announcement to change the law; everyone spotted it in fact, apart from the government.

[Teddy123]

I'm sure the government knew about the risk of increased prices and/or debit card discounts, but as good politicians, they knew you can never underestimate the intelligence of the public and realised the majority of the electorate would swallow the "we got rid of surcharges" line and give them credit for it.