Originally Posted by
dgreen12
Take a look at the fine print on the Costco website:
Rates listed are for qualified transactions. Reward cards process at a higher rate. Contact Elavon for details.
I don't own a business, but I'd bet that the Schwab Visa is treated as a "reward card" and that the credit card processing fee is somewhat higher than the quoted rate for qualifying transactions.
Yup - I'm a business, and I use that program, and I pay a minimum of 1.99% (plus a per transaction charge) for the best of circumstances, and up to 3.6% for the worst (some combination of reward and business cards). And that's not even getting into Amex.
If you want to see an industry rife with confusion, this is it. They generally can't tell you which transactions bumped to higher rates, much less why. They can only give you a list of general possibilities, which include things like address matching, rewards, business cards, days between authorization and capture, etc.