The part I question if this is Legal or Illegal?
QUOTE
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.
