Debit card £20 minimum spend, at a pub.

zagfles

Lots of pubs don't take cards, and some take them only if you order food. I don't think I've ever used a debit card to buy just a drink, or even a round, in a pub. Would never assume they'd take a card for a single drink!

peachyprice

zagfles wrote: »

Lots of pubs don't take cards, and some take them only if you order food. I don't think I've ever used a debit card to buy just a drink, or even a round, in a pub. Would never assume they'd take a card for a single drink!

I disagree, nowadays most pubs take cards.

And while they may not take them for a single drink most will have a limit of £5, which means people are more likely to by a drink and some food or two drinks to go over the £5.

By putting a £20 limit on transaction this pub is just cutting off it's nose to spite it's face. They must be turning away an awful lot of business from people who are not in groups of 3-4.

RossHan

I often use debit card to buy a coffee at around £2.20. Maybe its more common where I live.

prowla

I guess they didn't want your business.

But then the pub will probably be blaming the internet, brexit, price of petrol, inclement weather, or whatever for their loss of trade.

zaax

Well done for what you did. In my local a debit card transation costs the club 50p which, like other building charges (water etc), is spread over all the sales.

silverwhistle

peachyprice wrote: »

Would you walk a 40 min journey just for a pint of cider?

Well, it would have to be beer and then I have three pints. I actually do walk 40 minutes to town to meet friends. It's perhaps 45 minutes on the way back!



I've used a card once, in a 'spoons, but felt really guilty about it. I imagine your pub's transaction costs will be higher than the ones a big chain can negotiate. The barman can tell his bosses how many people he's turned away, and then they can re-evaluate their policy, but it's not something that would upset me.

vikingaero

We're so used to the no minimum spend/free delivery culture that no-one looks at the true cost of card transactions to a small business. It's not 50p per transaction. It's far more than that. Some PDQ machines cost £20-30 to rent per month, then there are the transaction fees which will be higher than 50p or x% because the business doesn't have the footfall and spend to benefit from a greater discount. A small amount of electricity is used. A dozen pack of small thermal rolls is £8 maybe from Booker. And there is the monthly cost of a broadband line. When the merchant gets paid there will normally be a charge for the acquirer to deposit money into the merchants bank account. And that excludes the chance/cost of fraudulent transactions. Despite what many people think, the banks don't take it on the chin, they will force merchants to pay back money. If you're a bank that is holding £500 of debits for a merchant, you simply deduct the cost of fraud from the £500 that you owe them. They can complain...


On the cash side, people harp on about tax/VAT evasion, but don't realise that that money is instant with no deductions (risk of theft and forgeries) and that many food delivery businesses offer terms such as full trade price if credit is required, or 5% discount for COD. To a lot of small businesses that 5% is the difference between profit and loss.

boliston

I seem to remember ordering a couple of pints and assumed card was fine as I could see a card machine - when it came to pay they said £10 min card transaction and the drinks were about £7.50 but they said they could do it as £10 cashback - I think they agreed to this only as they had already poured the pints and would not have been able to easily re-sell them once poured, as they said they are not really supposed to do cashback.

zagfles

RossHan wrote: »

I often use debit card to buy a coffee at around £2.20. Maybe its more common where I live.

Coffee is different - far larger profit margin (no excise duty, less transportation costs etc) so they can afford to pay 50p on a £2.20 transaction.

zagfles

RossHan wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. I forgot how pedantic some people are on forums I gave them a 1 star TripAdvisor along with loads of others for the same reason. A third of their reviews are terrible, probably the only thing to do.

I never look at the star ratings for exactly this reason, I look at the comments. People give low/high ratings for all sorts of things I consider trivial, like not taking card payments for small spends. I'm far more interested in how good their beer is.