InfiniteCycle

Ha ha ha.... love it. "Nur EC Karte!" The number of times I have heard that. It is normally followed by my walking out of wherever I am leaving all of the crap I was going to buy right there.

Stick you EC Karte. Just take every card. Don't get me started on German McDonalds not taking card payments. Way to not harmogonise the customer experience.

-Heathcliff-

+1

They do now, apparently. Including Amex, IIRC.

oliver2002

Huh? BK and McD both take VI/MC/AX.

DaniD

Have you ever been to Denmark? In most Shops they will only accept Danish CC or charge you an additional 3.5 % on your bill. So they will make you walk to the ATM and get some cash. Meastro-Debit card (Euroscheckkarte) has worked some times though.

Countries are just different...

ym1

Few more airlines (like SN) charge it for long time...

Lack

I couldn't pay with a card last month in a McD. Not to mention various other outlets, including restaurants and other touristy outlets.
I realize it's an additional cost, but the margin in such businesses should be enough to cover for it...

SebFra

LH is really crazy at the moment. Even more crazy that they will not refund this charge even with a fullflex ticket...

They earn money with their DKB credit card, they earn money with their tickets and the TSC, and now they want to earn even more money with this...

Franz has changed a lot, and I feel he has no idea about his company and things like "responsibility", etc.. And he can do this because he knows that the big companys dont care about this.

Mayrhuber would never have done some changes as nowadays happen...

Its really getting worse and there will be an alternative to LH soon. Then the customers will really go.
But Franz can go then as well because he has earned enough money by then. I just read an article for how many companies in Switzerland he is currently working as well... He does not really seem to care for LH at all, he just signs the presentation prepared by some consultants in order not to lose time for his other companies.

SAD!

DownUnderFlyer

This means you are paying the OPC if the point of origin and point of ticket issue is in those countries and from November you will pay the charge for this point of origin but no matter where the ticket is being issued.

fivesixseven

But if you live in The Netherlands you can pay by online banking (iDEAL) with SN, which is great and free.

rcs85551

For once, even though this change is certainly not welcome (I see it as yet another increase of cost/fares), it is something that's done the right way, with the OPC charge being implemented consistently across all sales channels.

Depending on the ticket price, good travel agents will be able to save you money as compared to a booking directly with LH.

Example:
Long-haul ticket ex DE purchased on lufthansa.com:
15 EUR TSC + 18 EUR OPC = 33 EUR total in fees

Long-haul ticket ex DE purchased through a good travel agent:
15 EUR TSC + OPC depending on the ticket price (for example 2%, with a cap at 18 EUR) = 27 EUR total in fees for a 600 EUR ticket, 33 EUR total max


Hence, this is a great opportunity for good travel agents out there who treat their clients fairly with a sensible TSC to actually sell below the fees that LH is charging...

Rambuster

LH seems to think they can profit from a booming ecomony.
The only flaw I see is that we seem to headed for a downturn (or even meltdown) right now !

MatthewLAX

Not ex-DE, though (right?).

PayPal never works for me anyway, but it is 10EUR for debit/PayPal and 15EUR for credit card currently ex-Germany. Thank goodness for the discount vouchers.

I'm a bit confused now. Is the new fee going to be on top of what they already charge, or just standardised and levied in places where fees are not already charged (like if I don't ahve a voucher, I currently book through LX to save the booking fee)?

vinonobile

Cool, I wasn't aware how generous LH management had been so far: Until now they apparently paid my cc cost out of their personal pockets

I think we should all be happy that until now we never had to contribute to part of their operational cost!

San Gottardo

Thank you, I have worked in retail banking in Germany for years.

Secure? Yes, but not more secure than VISA or Mastercard. Especially since the ec-cards use the same infrastructure as VISA and Mastercard.

Cheap? Artificial priicing. For some reason transactions with that card are priced lower than those with VISA and MAstercard for the merchant. However, in other countries that have only VISA and Mastercard the merchant fees are as low or lower as in Germany for ec-cards.

Indeed the ec-Karte has been around since ages. The problem is not that only German customers have them. The problem is that many shops in Germany do not accept VISA or Mastercard, and - this is what I alluded to - the only way to pay other than cash is with a ec-card issued in Germany.! It is no good having a Maestro card issued for instance in the UK or Switzerland. Beent there, done it. That is wonderful when you come from a foreign country, you are used to use your plastic about everywhere in the world (including Antarctica), but then you sit in an upscale restaurant in a "global" city like Munich, Berlin and Frankfurt and you find that your only way to pay is cash (why would I carry more than 80 EUR in my pocket?) or with a card that you only get if you have a bank account in Germany (80M people in Germany, several billion outside). The good news is that they have moved on from exchanging stones. The bad news is that they haven't arrived in the era of electronic payments yet.

It is a fact that in terms of payments Germany is FAAAAR behind most other European countries (at least all the ones I know). Isolated payment system, over-reliance on cash (the joke goes "bills of EUR 100 and larger are printed only for Germans and drug dealers". Or witness the signs along French motorways that show EUR 100 and EUR 200 bills crossed out, and then written below, only in German, "nicht für Autobahngebühr". Shows that only Germans have the idea to carry such bills with them), card payments are clumsy (signature rather than PIN, merchants often disappear with your card rather than using mobile terminals).

Sorry for the off-topic, but there is some substance to what I wrote. Good you didn't write "BS"

NewbieRunner

Thanks for the explanation. Yes, that makes sense.

I'm also confused. If the OPC is in additin to the TSC, is there a still way to avoid paying the TSC? It's a long time since I bought a ticket on lufthansa.com (all my revenue flights recently have been on LX and my LH flights have been awards ) but in the UK at least the TSC of £4 used to be waived if you paid by PayPal.