Alpha Rooms - debit card charge??

Geordie_bear

..just been trying to book a couple of rooms of this website & they're trying to charge me a £3 'credit card charge'!:rolleyes: Now firstly I always use a debit card & secondly they claim it's the banks that are adding the charge which is poppycock as I've just rang my bank & they've confirmed that they don't!

So where does this charge come from??:mad:

yorksrabbit

It's common practice for brokers as well as suppliers to charge to their customers the commission fee they pay to their payments processor.

Biggest abusers are charter airlines like EasyJet: in order to tempt with a lowest possible price, they exclude all mention of taxes, compulsory "extras" and credit card charges.

Debit cards are still widely excluded from commission charge-back but don't count on it: last year charter airline Jet2 sought to charge us £8 for the privilege of accepting a payment via our card direct from our bank account. Had it been a credit card, Jet2 wanted £12.

It's not, strictly speaking, a scam, because you only finish up paying what should've been paid as a total in the first place. But it is deceitful, because the "bargain price" is illusory.

If airlines and others were honest enough in the first place to state the true cost of a transaction, there'd be no need for this finessing around the edges.

You can help to crack down on this kind of conduct by refusing to go along with it: tell Alpha Rooms to get lost and book with LateRooms instead or Booking.com, neither of which -- last time I looked -- levy any kind of card processing charge.

It may well be that the total amount involved remains the same but at least Alpha Rooms will have lost business by treating you as a moron.

DCFC79

Firstly i believe the charge is for alpha rooms to process the payment but as to why its £3 i dont know as i dont think it costs that much to process payment but i could be wrong, its pretty normal practice for this, you tried using a debit card

BrightonR

Here's a little tip on the card charge...i went to book last night with my voucher and the hotel was £51 but i had a £50 voucher so on a £1 payment, i was paying a £5 charge. I noticed pre-paid mastercards were free so i selected that and tried my normal (not pre-paid) mastercard credit card. they payment and booking went through with no charge

My card was a Santander Zero Mastercard though not sure if this would work on all or not.

Minrose

I am unfortunate enough to have just paid nearly £15 for one single transaction for buying a £1,000 hotel stay via Alpharooms! This is 1.5% of the value of the hotel stay, and how can they justify it!? Mine is a Visa debit card! I was told that the credit crad charge is 3.5% of the full amount, which will mean i would have paid well over£50 for my staty, had i used a credit card! Anyone can advise if I could challenge this via legal process p,ease?

Card charges aside, the charging is very creepy! At no stage before i press the final stage, online or even in small print is there information suggesting that, otherwise i wouldn't have proceeded!! The process is not transparent and cannot be justufied!

The one consolation is that it is probably syill the cheapest for thr deal in the market but that is not the point. I would like to challenge them but need some hepl- do i stand any chance?

Thanks