Originally Posted by
bostontraveler
Just wrapped up a 3 week trip around Australia. What is up with merchants everywhere tacking on a 2-3% fee for using an AMEX? Even hotels (pretty tacky in my opinion)! I've traveled to many, many countries (over 80) but never seen this practiced so widely ...
If an extended warranty on a product costs a store $30, isn't it reasonable for it to charge people who want the warranty $30 rather than charging everyone $10 for it whether they want it or not? Or, if cheese on a burger costs the merchant $1, isn't it reasonable to charge $1 more for cheeseburgers than for hamburgers, rather than raising the price of hamburgers by 25¢ for everyone and letting people have cheese free if they want it? This is the same sort of thing.
AmEx charges merchants more than MC/Visa/etc. do. The merchants can either pass the charge on to people who use AmEx or bundle it into their prices so everyone pays a bit of it. If they didn't tack on this surcharge, their prices would go up for everyone.
AmEx is my card of choice, I use it wherever there's no surcharge, but despite that I think what they're doing is fair. (It would violate merchant contracts in the U.S., but I still think it's fair.)