Airlines And Credit Cards: Friends Or Foes?
So we’ve talked about why you should use a credit card to book a flight, but looking down the road a bit, that may not be such a great idea. Forbes predicts that the airline industry, in the midst of profit crashes and business closures, will make it routine practice to charge premiums on tickets purchased with credit cards. According to Forbes columnist Joel Widzer:
“Logically, the next step in cutting distribution costs is making a full-frontal attack on credit cards…It is estimated that for each ticket booked with a credit card, airlines are charged a merchant fee ranging from 2% to 3%, or around $10 to $15 per ticket, roughly $3 billion for the world’s airlines.”
This would be no surprise because the airlines have already created plenty of other miscellaneous taxes and fees to boost revenues. However, if they want to pursue a credit card usage surcharge, it might require a little tap-dancing. Visa and MasterCard forbid their partnering merchants to impose surcharges on consumers. American Express discourages it. I find this quite ironic since the credit card companies are themselves expert nickel-and-dimers, and I know of at least one credit card company that imposes a surcharge for processing bill payment by phone.
But I digress… At any rate, the airlines industry will probably find a way around this. As Forbes points out, a few of the slightly more obscure airlines already charge “handling fees” for credit card payments processed online. Widzer recommends that travelers establish themselves as a modestly elite customer with one airline to increase the preferential treatment they will be given. Loyalty pays, and it could even be in the form of carrying an airline rewards card.
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:13 pm
[…] Airlines And Credit Cards: Friends Or Foes? So we’ve talked about why you should use a credit card to book a flight, but looking down the road a bit, that may not be such a great idea. Forbes predicts that the airline industry, in the midst of profit crashes and business closures, will make it routine practice to charge premiums on tickets purchased […] […]
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:17 pm
[…] Airlines And Credit Cards: Friends Or Foes? So we’ve talked about why you should use a credit card to book a flight, but looking down the road a bit, that may not be such a great idea. Forbes predicts that the airline industry, in the midst of profit crashes and business closures … […]
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:27 pm
[…] Airlines And Credit Cards: Friends Or Foes? So we’ve talked about why you should use a credit card to book a flight, but looking down the road a bit, that may not be such a great idea. Forbes predicts that the airline industry, in the midst of profit crashes and business closures … […]
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:03 pm
[…] Airlines And Credit Cards: Friends Or Foes? So we’ve talked about why you should use a credit card to book a flight, but looking down the road a bit, that may not be such a great idea. Forbes predicts that the airline industry, in the midst of profit crashes and business closures … […]
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:14 pm
[…] Credit Counseling Service wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptSo we’ve talked about why you should use a credit card to book a flight, but looking down the road a bit, that may not be such a great idea. Forbes predicts that the airline industry, in the midst of profit crashes and business closures, will make it routine practice to charge premiums on tickets purchased […] […]
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:22 pm
[…] post by Hayli Morrison This entry is filed under Credit card. You can follow any responses to this entry through the […]
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:30 pm
[…] Airlines And Credit Cards: Friends Or Foes? So we’ve talked about why you should use a credit card to book a flight, but looking down the road a bit, that may not be such a great idea. Forbes predicts that the airline industry, in the midst of profit crashes and business closures … […]
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:51 am
[…] Airlines And Credit Cards: Friends Or Foes? So we’ve talked about why you should use a credit card to book a flight, but looking down the road a bit, that may not be such a great idea. Forbes predicts that the airline industry, in the midst of profit crashes and business closures … […]