Originally Posted by
prgboy
Yes, yes, I take all your remarks about my choices.
I am just a little surprised with the incoherency of these fees:
The ticket I was questioning first was Ryanair CPH-PRG. Card processing fee of 2,35 % was added.
Last night I purchased BUD-PRG also with Ryanair and paid with the same AMEX card. Surprise, surprise, no added card processing fee!
So, I still do not understand the pattern.
There are laws regulating card fees. It's possible that CPH-PRG was sold in Denmark and that BUD-PRG was sold in Hungary and it's possible that Danish law differs from Hungarian law.
In Denmark, a card is exempted from card fees if it satisfies all of these requirements:
- The card must have been issued in the EU or the EEA. Maybe Swiss cards are fine too as some EU directives and regulations on money markets also have been implemented by Switzerland, not sure. Non-EU/EEA/CH cards, such as US cards, may be subject to card fees.
- The card must be a personal card. Corporate cards may be subject to fees.
- The card network must have the concept of an interchange fee. This means that there is a bank which issued your card, a bank which the merchant uses and a network between the two banks. It's the concept used by Visa and Mastercard. As you noticed, AMEX is designed differently and thus may attract fees.
The EU put a cap on interchange fees and won't permit card fees in situations where the fees are capped. As I understand it, Denmark allows merchants to charge a fee in all situations where the card fees aren't capped, but Hungary might further restrict this.