Yep - 1.5-2% merchant fee for tickets is pretty high, given that T/A bad debt record is good... As G Betsy said, the cost is either built into the price (with expensive fares) or not (with consolidator/ nett fares)

If you don't want to pay it, use cash or bank transfer. Depending on how generous your cc rewards programme is, the markup may or may not be worth it for you...