United Tells Travel Agents to Cover Credit Card Fees

[webworm98]

info

 

 

The part I question if this is Legal or Illegal?

 

United is asking these travel agents to process credit card transactions themselves and then report the sale as a cash transaction. Until now, when a travel agency (or OTA) has sold a published ticket on United (or any other carrier) the credit card is actually processed by the airline. As such, the airline is responsible for paying the 2-3% (in rough numbers) that Amex, Visa, Mastercard and Discover charge for using their cards. In the new world proposed by United, agents will process the credit cards themselves (presumably along with an additional consumer fee) and then remit the full amount of the ticket back to United. This would obviously save a considerable amount of money for United if widely adopted.

 

Not sure if regulations allow credit card transactions to be reported as cash transactions.

 

What is to prevent the travel agencies to pass the fee back to the airlines, even with them reporting it as cash transactions.

 

If an airline goes bankrupt, consumer does a charge back. It wont hurt the airline, it will hurt the travel agency, instead of the airline.

 

I bet we will see a lot less travel agencies.

[improper_validation]

What a crock. $15 too much to loose on $500?

 

Why not add it into the fee of buying from a travel agent if they want to play this game?

[webworm98]

Unless all do that. Travel agency will refuse. The reason, some are self employed.

[GEORGE]

TAX DEDUCTABLE COST OF DOING BUSINESS

 

So they want JOE's TRAVEL AGENCY to charge the ticket at $500 and JOE's TRAVEL AGENCY eats the 3% fee and then send the AIRLINE the information that the customer paid cash???

 

The travel agents already don't get as much of a cut as they did from the airlines (IF ANY)

 

I thought I read someplace they don't even get paid a CUT from the airlines any more so the charge a FEE to the customer

 

[azntg]

One of the two outcomes:

1) We might be seeing fewer travel agencies offering United Airlines flights or 2) Travel Agencies charge customers a higher price to recoup the interchange differential.

 

A pity. Not that I liked UA per se, but they are Star Alliance and traditionally, I've had good luck with travel agencies in terms of price, convenience and service.

[hegemony]

why not just buy on ual.com?

[GEORGE]

I have done fine on my own for decades

 

Unless a travel agent has special prices that the general public can't get...

 

I use places like expedia.com

 

Then I book direct with the airline

 

(AA/DL/UA)

[hegemony]

I agree. I have not used a travel agent in at least 10 years.

 

direct with airline works best IMHO

 

yesterday I did find a cheaper UAL fare on travelocity for OGG so I bought the tickets on travelocity not ual. Of course the itinerary shows online for my account at ual.com and I can change seats, upgrade, etc there.