Originally Posted by
UAX_Brasilia
It costs merchant's fees when you use a credit card. When you purchase FROM .bomb (aka United), United charges you and United pays the CC fees.
When you used your TA, instead of them charging you and paying the CC fees, they charged you on behalf of United, once again making United pay the CC fees, even though they are not the ones who issued the ticket.
I think the problem with this is that if the agent goes ahead and books for their customer on united.com then UA will have to pay the merchant fees anyhow so it doesn't really make a difference.
Seems to me like a good way for UA to lose a few more customers who get pushed by their TA to a different airline. Then again I'm not one of the experts who have so expertly guided UA into its current state of affairs so what do I know. In the current environment finding ways to reduce ease of purchase of your product by consumers is absolutely genius...what will they think of next?