Credit card transaction fees

Yoeddy_rider

Hi,
Any body know if i can claim back credit card trasaction fees, on a cancelled holiday when the cancellation was not due to me. booking was through trip advisor.

thanks
Mark

bradders1983

What do you mean "transaction fees"? You mean the cost your credit card provider made for doing a transaction in a non-GBP currency?

Yoeddy_rider

yes, was charged when i paid the deposit, (expected) but also charged on the refund. so now back at square 1, but now £77 worse off.

bradders1983

Well I have recently booked and cancelled a hotel in the US with my Natwest card and they also credit the account with a transaction fee refund, so maybe you need to move to a provider who does this. Doesnt help you at the moment, though.

CardinalWolsey

Who / what triggered the cancellation, if not yourself? Are these fees purely "fees", or is there also an exchange rate difference involved (e.g. you paid USD1000, which cost you GBP750, and got refunded USD1000, which at that point in time equalled GBP700)? If the latter, no right to a further refund, as you were refunded what you paid, and that's the cost / risk of paying in a foreign currency. If the former, provide more details for us to assist.

bradders1983

Aha thats a fair point, if its just because the exchange rate got worse then there is nothing you can do.

bradders1983

Yoeddy_rider wrote: »

yes, was charged when i paid the deposit, (expected) but also charged on the refund. so now back at square 1, but now £77 worse off.

Just to confirm - you sure this was a charge and not a credit?

I think the obvious answer here is that the exchange rate got worse.

As an example - I mentioned I cancelled a hotel in the States, I did this the same day I booked it, therefore this appeared on my statement:

CAESARS PALACE £88.29
NON-STERLING TRANSACTION FEE £2.43
CAESARS PALACE -£88.29
NON STERLING TRANSACTION FEE -£2.43

Everything cancelled out and as I did it the same day the rate was exactly the same.

martindow

bradders1983 wrote: »

Just to confirm - you sure this was a charge and not a credit?

I think the obvious answer here is that the exchange rate got worse.

As an example - I mentioned I cancelled a hotel in the States, I did this the same day I booked it, therefore this appeared on my statement:

CAESARS PALACE £88.29
NON-STERLING TRANSACTION FEE £2.43
CAESARS PALACE -£88.29
NON STERLING TRANSACTION FEE -£2.43

Everything cancelled out and as I did it the same day the rate was exactly the same.

When I take card payments I can void payments if I'm quick. In this case the money has been authorised but the transaction does not take place until a few hours later. If you can void it no money is lost.


If it's gone through, cancelling it means refunding. In this case money will be lost on the conversion to a foreign currency and more on the conversion back even if the exchange rate is the same. Banks set buying and selling rates in their favour. There will be a further loss if the banks add extra transaction fees for international payments.

Yoeddy_rider

yes , some proportion of the loss is due to the exchange rate, as it is 6 months difference between booking and refund. The Refund is given as 809.90 euros at exchange rate 1.18, which i work out at £686.35 the is a trans action fee given as £21.01 but the credit returned is £681.70 ,

Original purchase was 809.90 euros at 1.06 , total debit was £758.90 of which 22.03 was transaction fee.

i can't get these figures to work out, im just 77.23 down

i think this is going to turn out to be lost, thanks for the replys.

bradders1983

Yoeddy_rider wrote: »

yes , some proportion of the loss is due to the exchange rate, as it is 6 months difference between booking and refund. The Refund is given as 809.90 euros at exchange rate 1.18, which i work out at £686.35 the is a trans action fee given as £21.01 but the credit returned is £681.70 ,

Original purchase was 809.90 euros at 1.06 , total debit was £758.90 of which 22.03 was transaction fee.

i can't get these figures to work out, im just 77.23 down

i think this is going to turn out to be lost, thanks for the replys.

That refund rate is a shocker, the bank rate has been nowhere near 1.18 for ages. What credit card is this?

And you bought the hotel when it was 1.06, again its not even been under 1.10 for 18 months.

I would suggest you change providers.

Yoeddy_rider

Barclaycard cash back, i'll look into a specific one for international purchases in future