Tiger waive credit card levy when paying with Debit MasterCard

[NickN]

I just scored myself a $78 return ticket to Melbourne to try out Tiger and was pleased to see they waive the $6 per sector credit card levy if you pay with an Australian debit MasterCard. I dont normally use mine for online purchases but was happy to to get the reduction in fare.

[Guy W]

I think TT has been doing this since about a month ago. No credit card fees will be charged when using debit Visa/MC.

[Mark B]

The so called 'raw fares' were introduced to comply with the single pricing changes to the trade practices act. In essence, if they advertised a price, there had to be some way of purchasing at that price.

[NickN]

Mark is there a reason other carriers still charge a fee for the privelage of paying by credit card? (pretty much the only way anyway so your forced to pay the fee).

I booked with Virgin Blue to Canberra next weekend and they charged $6 (from memory) to pay with credit card.

I understand in alot of cases the company charging the card is also charged a small fee by the bank etc however from what I understand these charges are small only around 1% of the transaction price. I'd be happy with a 1% surcharge but a flat fee of $6 on a ticket that only cost $161 seems little much.

[Steve Jones]

I'm pretty sure Virgin and Jetstar now both offer an option to pay by direct debit from your bank account free of charge, like QF have had for a while now with BPay.

[Rhys Xanthis]

Originally Posted by Steve Jones

I'm pretty sure Virgin and Jetstar now both offer an option to pay by direct debit from your bank account free of charge, like QF have had for a while now with BPay.

Certainly do, I use my bank account when I can on Jetstar to save on the Credit card fee.

[Mark B]

Originally Posted by NickN

Mark is there a reason other carriers still charge a fee for the privelage of paying by credit card? (pretty much the only way anyway so your forced to pay the fee).

Apart from saying 'because they can', I don't really have an answer. I could understand, probably, if they charged a percentage, but all the airlines have managed to set a flat fee charge. On low fares, these can indeed be a sizeable percentage.

(and don't get me started on hire car companies that charge a fee, notwithstanding that the use of credit cards is pretty much integral to the way they do business)