- By : Mr. Arvind Chadha
- Date: 08-10-2013
- Views : 2036
- [Gabu, Guinea-bissau]
Travel companies are continuing to charge excessive fees for credit and debit card use, despite efforts by the Government to abolish the practice.
Firms are no longer allowed to charge more than what it costs them to process a transaction following the clampdown. According to Which? – the consumer watchdog - that equates to a two per cent fee for credit card payments and “a matter of pennies” for debit cards.
But it claims that more than 700 holidaymakers have been in touch in recent weeks to highlight charges higher than two per cent, adding that one firm – the travel agent eDreams – had been imposing a charge of 18 per cent on transactions.
Which? reported that “eDreams does not appear to have a consistent surcharging policy. We have found examples of over 18% surcharges for both debit and credit cards. For example, we found a return flight from London to Rome advertised as £93.21. There was no fee for paying by Visa Entropay (a prepaid virtual visa card), but £17.01 (18.25 per cent) was added on for paying by Visa debit card, and £17.56 (18.86 per cnt) was added for paying by Visa credit card, Master Card debit card or Master Card Credit card. These surcharges were labelled as ‘service charges and payment fees’.”
Other travel companies accused of breaking the rules were easyBus, Vueling, Monarch, Jet2 and Germanwings. Each was found by Which? readers to be charging between 2.5 per cent and 3.5 per cent.
“It’s disappointing that six months after the Government banned rip-off surcharges, consumers are still being hit with high fees simply for paying with a card,” said Richard Lloyd of Which? “While some companies have reduced their surcharges, there should be a crackdown on rogue companies who continue to flout the ban. We’ll be passing on our findings to Trading Standards and asking them to enforce the rules.”
Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, chairman of easyBus, told the Mail that the report was “misguided”.
"EasyBus currently charges 50p per debit/credit card transaction compared with an approximate cost of 35p. This a storm in a teacup over 15p,” he said.
Which? praised First Choice and Thomson, both owned by Tui Travel, easyJet, Mytrainticket and easyCar, for agreeing to reduce their fees. EasyJet, for example, will drop its credit card charge from 2.5 per cent to two per cent later this month, while easyCar abolished its 99p debit card and £2.99 credit card charges in September.