MSE News: Credit and debit card charges banned from Saturday - what you need to know

eskbanker wrote: »

Just made a booking with Ryanair and am happy, but mildly surprised, to advise that they appear to be fully compliant with the new rules, although I'm not under any illusion that they won't have raised their fares (and the plethora of ancillary add-on costs) to compensate, albeit they haven't done so overnight....

I have just heard a Ryanair advert on the radio (LBC) that stated they have a 2% credit card charge. Perhaps someone played an old tape.

eskbanker wrote: »

This raises an interesting issue - if PayPal aren't allowed to charge extra for credit card payments in this way then this would effectively become a free way of withdrawing cash from a credit card account! Is this a loophole or is their surcharge exempt from the new regulations?

It would be great if you could topup paypal with a credit card and pay no fee. There must be some reason why they can impose a fee for using a credit card instead of debit card, probably some money laundering rules or because it is treated as a cash advance? With other transactions you are actually buying something whether it is a holiday, motor insurance, a tax bill etc.

With paypal "send money to a friend" you are just transferring some cash, it isn't for a transaction.

This has prompted me to check the discount scheme my employer uses which means I can buy various gift cards at a discount but up until yesterday if I paid for them by credit card it added a few % fee. No more though which means I can happily use a reward or cashback credit card for some extra discounts! Shame they don't take AMEX though.

sidda01 wrote: »

On 4th January, TUI charged me £90 for using a credit card to pay for a holiday booked for the end of March. I had no choice but to use a credit card because of their full payment 12 weeks before travelling rule. They then removed the credit card surcharges on the 9th January. Do I have ground to claim back my £90?

No - they levied a charge that was consistent with their Ts & Cs (and the law) as at the time of making the payment and the fact that later payments won't be subject to that charge is irrelevant.

If, for the sake of argument, they'd increased a card fee after you'd paid, would you have been happy to stump up a higher amount if they'd chased you for it?!

crumpetman wrote: »

This has prompted me to check the discount scheme my employer uses which means I can buy various gift cards at a discount but up until yesterday if I paid for them by credit card it added a few % fee. No more though which means I can happily use a reward or cashback credit card for some extra discounts! Shame they don't take AMEX though.

Perks at Work removed the fee on Saturday. I'd been waiting until then to top-up my gift cards. Now always choose the WOWpoints option, even if it's an equivalent discount, to make the full cashback on the credit card :-)

jon81uk wrote: »

A fee to send money to a friend, is not in the scope of this legislation.
If a retailer (eg Topshop) charged you 5% to use paypal, that is now illegal. But if Paypal want to charge you to send money to another paypal user, that is a different type of transaction and not covered under this ruling.

Thanks for that - it’s sort of what I expected...it’s the reference to “services” and this could be seen as a service.

Funnily enough, I sent a message to PayPal and they actually don’t know the answer...so far this is my reply:

Hi liviboy, as these are new rules for us as well, I'm going to send your inquiry to a specialist who can help to ensure that you get accurate information. You should be hearing from them as soon as they can reply. 🙂

It’ll be interesting to see if their specialist’s response mirrors yours which is quite clear :-)