Mastercard and Visa will soon be prevented from charging the merchants same fee for all cards with same brand. An antitrust lawsuit now requires them to offer different fees for different cards, meaning cards with rewards may cost a merchant more compared to non-reward card of the same brand.

How is this likely to impact reward cards? Would their acceptance become limited, or their use more expensive for the consumer? Or merchants may just absorb the cost instead of going through the trouble of setting different price for payment by different card for the SAME merchandise?

Any thoughts from anybody, especially from businessmen?