Qantas has defended its low-cost carrier’s decision to charge a fee of up to $8.50 for credit card payments, saying it’s not a ‘credit-card surcharge’ but a ‘comfort cost’.
Comparing it to the comfort of ‘paying extra to sit in the exit row’, the airline claims its budget off-shoot, Jetstar, isn’t making money off plastic fees.
The statement comes after The Reserve Bank of Australia put forth an idea in March, that would encourage airlines to drop booking fees, particularly those made via a credit card. Read on
In a discussion paper on RBA’s website, the group said it has been floating around with the idea to discount booking fees for travellers.
The saving would come from a ‘low fixed-dollar amount’ cap on payments made by plastic.
However, Qantas has responded saying it is losing money whenever it accepts a credit card payment.
“Qantas significantly under-recovers its total cost of card acceptance through its card payment fees. Jetstar does not levy a credit card surcharge.”
Qantas
“Jetstar’s Booking and Service Fee (BSF) is a market based fee. It is not a cost recovery mechanism for a type of card payment and is not correlated to costs associated with credit cards.”