New rules to end cries of 'WTF... a £10 online booking fee?'

Re: so...

This annoys me when I book cinema tickets and I get charged a "booking fee". They are getting the money up-front for crying out loud.

Re: so...

Last gig I went to charged a couple of quid "postage" to email me the tickets..

Re: so...

Booking and administration fees are not included in this legislation as long as they are not dependant on a particular means of payment (i.e. A set booking fee is allowed but a booking fee only payable if you use a credit card is not).

No chance

There be some new fee added on, Seat Valeting charge maybe, or an entrance fee at the plane door. They'll find someway to charge the same and stay in the rules.

EasyJet maybe, Ryanair aren't a UK company.

EU law

IIRC. this is an EU directive, but has been implemented ~1year early in the UK, as a result of certain company (who shall remain nameless) taking the piss.

Re: But, but, but...all payment involves the payee in costs

When I used to own a retail outlet, I was charged by the bank 3% for credit card transactions, 25 pence for debit card transactions and 50p for cheques. What these new rules are saying is that the fees can be passed on to the customer, but they can't exceed the charges they pay. So the £5 debit card fee that I've been seeing recently when booking hotels is now illegal, but they could charge me 25p.

Re: But, but, but...all payment involves the payee in costs

"If you pay by credit card, they pay a credit card fee." - which may vary depending on whether it's a consumer card or a corporate card, and depending on card brand may not be accepted at all. Charge cards like Amex are a different breed, too ...

"If you pay by cheque they (almost certainly) pay a cheque processing fee - and have to fill out payin slips etc. which takes time." so take the 30s it takes to fill out a paying in slip multiply it by checkout staff wage, add the processing fee and you have the cost

"If you pay by cash, they have to sort the cash, take it down to the bank, stand in line and (quite possibly) have to pay a fee for depositing it" - so again, take the actual time needed (again, maybe 30s or so) & multiply by checkout staff wage, add any fee, and you have the cost

"If you pay by debit card, they pay a small fee." 25p or so, not £5 or so though ...

If they want these regulations to work, won't it mean companies will have to actually handle differentiated pricing based on whether you are paying by corporate or personal cards, for example?

Re: Believe it when I see it

No, if the snouts get ousted from one trough, they'll simply find another.

Re: Believe it when I see it

But you entered into a contract. You didn't turn up, leaving BMI with an seat, which they may or may not be able to sell.

This is a completely different argument.

Re: Believe it when I see it

A nameless Scandinavian EU government lost a EC court case, obligating them to repay pro-rata the extortionate tax they apply to cars in that country, when a car was exported.

The tax rate is approx. 200%. so a 20,000 pound car thus costs 60,000 pounds. After say x-years the car is exported, and maybe it has a local value of 30,000 pounds (there is an official scale for calculation), so the tax component would be 20,000 pounds for refund. The government "fee" for this service is 15% or in this example 3000 pounds.

Governments, you see, are even worse when all is said and done ...

Booking charge per ticket

I would postulate that a limit placed on the number of tickets that can be purchased in a single transaction is irrelevant if the booking fee is per ticket anyway.

Re: Rip off

Quite simply, psychology. Even though you or I would not care about 1p, studies have shown this to be an effective marketing ploy. Same goes for "headline price", it may not work for some, but enough to make it a viable trick.

Re: mmmmm....

That 's what would normally called a commission. An expensive DLL I take it?

Credit card issuers seem to charge a reasonable exchange rate and then pile on the conversion fee.

Back on topic, here in Maine businesses are not even allowed to add a surcharge for credit cards or debit cards. As a result there are some hold-outs who only take cash and cheques. Businesses can offer a discount for using cash or check.

Personally, I like this change and charging a distinct, consistent fee is fine by me. I want to know what the credit card companies are charging and I think it's good for people to understand that credit cards are an expensive way to pay and that's why I avoid them when dealing with local businesses. If you don't need to borrow and don't need the easy recovery you can use cash, debit or even cheque instead and I'm sure the business will be a lot happier.

Booking fees can be annoying, but aside frkm Ticketbastards "convenience fee" I don't mind a separate booking fee that separates the "event" price from the administration price, as long as I pay once per transaction.

Re: mmmmm....

There are three exchange rates of interest when changing currency. Let's start with the main headline rate that is quoted by financial news outlets like Bloomberg or BFM Business(1). That is what I call the "centre rate", upon which all other rates for exchange between those currencies are based. The centre rate is the rate paid by forex traders who often deal in nine or ten figure sums per transaction.

So, the other two rates? They are the "buy" and "sell" rates. Let's talk about exchanging between dollars and Euros, since that's the sort of forex transaction I'm most likely to have in my everyday life. The "buy" rate is the rate I pay when I buy dollars with euros, and the "sell" rate is the rate I pay when I sell dollars for euros. These rates, in effect, are the centre rate modified by a notional commission rate in favour of the bank / bureau de change / Marks & Spencer(2). (This is the origin of the name "centre rate", since it lies in between the buy and sell rates. A bureau de change in a Eurozone country will normally fix their buy and sell rates for, say, Euros-vs-USDollars as the centre rate minus(buy) or plus(sell) some number of USD-cents per Euro.)

A lot of credit and debit cards will quote the centre rate when converting a transaction quoted in a foreign currency, and then add in an exchange fee. My (French) bank does this, and the fee is (a) small and (b) dependent on the amount of the transaction. I'd say that 11 quid is a bit steep by my standards, unless your DLL was priced somewhere over $1000.

The alternative is that they charge a "buy" rate, but that causes all sorts of problems, since some fraction of the less knowledgeable customers will see a discrepancy between the centre rate and the rate on their bill and kick up an unholy fuss.

(1) BFM Business is a French business/financial news organisation, available in various formats. It is similar in coverage to Bloomberg's news offerings, but with a French slant. BFM originally stood for "Business FM".

(2) I don't know about now, but up to 2009 (during which year I left the UK, and haven't been back since), M&S was the cheapest way to just buy/sell foreign currency against pounds, since their "spread" (difference between the buy/sell rates) was smaller than anyone else's. It was amusing watching Thomas Cook staff in the queue at the M&S exchange counter, as if they could get a better rate there than any putative staff discount...

Re: Virgin Media

Actually, if you read the legalese, they pass it off not as a £5 fee on credit card payments, but a £5 discount on direct debit payments, effectively evading this legislation.

Re: Car rental

You are not obliged to take out the excess cover from the rental company. Either drive very carefully or buy such insurance from an actual insurance company. You can get annual cover for about thirty quid.

Mind you, I would never knowingly rent from an outfit that has to "pick you up" from (presumably) the airport. It's just asking for trouble. Stick to the majors that have a presence in the terminal building, but feel free to check with brokers for best deals. Often, though, the company's own website is cheapest. I'm taking a car from Avis at Barcelona airport later this week, just over a hundred euros for seven days and no fuel scam.

-A.

Re: Car rental

Some online car hire sites offer their own collision damage waiver insurance but the car hire companies will still put a block on the excess until you return the car in the same condition or until the claim for damages is settled. IMO it's worth doing because the CDW is about 1/3 the price.

Also take your own child seats because they will veritably rape you on the price of those. You could buy a new seat many times over for the cost that most places charge for one of their manky old seats.

Re: I await RyanAir's response with interest

Ryanairs "fuck you" response would have been simple... Booking Fee levy as a "protest". Strange how their protests always end up costing the customer money and profit for RyanAir. Saying that I haven't flew with RyanAir since they stopped flying out of Belfast, I only flew with them because I knew how to dodge all their fees and could get VERY cheap flights with them, £6 return per person to East Midlands on one occasion, but it appears those days are long gone. So given the choice for the same price, I would fly with another airline. Their credit card fees were extortionate back then, although I believe it's now been changed to a website admin fee or some other other equally extortionate nonsense nowadays.

Re: wood for the tress

reasonable to charge a bit extra if extra work is involved.

non payment example - gift wrap. "that box of chocs is a tenner, and for a quid extra, I'll put it in some pretty paper"

You see the hidden cost when you go to your corner shop and it says "minimum spend £5 for debit cards".

If you buy a Yorkie (other chocolate bars are available) shelf price 70p and pay cash, that's done and dusted.

But they don't want you paying for it by debit card because they'll be charged say 25p to do so, and that's a big chunk of the profit they would have made on your purchase

I think the argument is that Direct Debit payements are much less likely to be missed. If a human has to remember to manually pay be card then they are much more likely to forget meaning that letters have to be written, phone calls made and/or debt collectors contracted. This costs time and money. They are also faced with a higher risk of fraudulent transactions as a different card may be used for every payment.

In your case why not setup a second bank account from which the direct debits are taken. If the charity has enough money it does a bank transfer to put the cash in the account 3 days before the DD is due. If it doesn't you transfer money in from your personal account?

"The old VAT scam"

You seem to think that there is some legislation prohibiting dealing with prices before VAT. You are obviously seriously misled.

When quoting a price, businesses are obliged to state whether or not that price includes VAT, if applicable.

Depending on who their main customers are , they may choose to show prices one way or another, or even both. It is a legal requirement to itemise the VAT on the invoice, if applicable.

This is because most businesses are interested in the price without VAT; they will reclaim the VAT and it is therefore not relevant. If customers are mainly of the trade variety then the preference is to talk about prices before VAT.

It isn't an "old scam", it's called being sensitive to clients' requirements.

@ Syntax Error

It appears there are several syntax errors in your post.

You also have a fundamental misunderstanding of the way card payments work.