Is this a new policy from BA?

I got a reminder that the balance on a BA weekend holiday treat I'd booked to Nice in October was due, so went online to pay the £499 outstanding balance as normal. Everything seemed fine at checkout and used my long standing stored BA Premium Plus Amex card and never thought anything of it. A few minutes after paying I got a card notification on my phone to say that £504.60 had been debited to my card. I nearly didn't bother with it until I remembered the quite distinct balance of £499 didn't tally with what was shown, so I went to check the summary, and lo and behold, a £5.60 credit card surcharge had indeed been added for using the same personal card I have used for years without issue!

Give that the card is their heavily promoted BA/Amex linked product are we now to assume that all such transactions will now attract a similar levy?

Suffice to say, even though the small amount wasn't worthy of my time, I was curious to now if this was indeed a change of policy via the back door - so I phoned the Gold line to ask. The agent Rosemarie didn't seem that clued up on the question but stated that they have no control over what Amex charge - so it must have been them. Fast forward to Amex, who categorically confirm that the payment amount was generated by and originated from BA and not them. Had it been them, they would have listed it. I also got the usual updated e-ticket receipt by email soon after, and it did indeed state that the charge was levied by BA.

I'm aware that BA do apply a surcharge for Business credit cards, but this isn't, nor do I have one, this was simply my historic personal card that is saved to my account.

I've now sent a message to customer services asking for a definitive answer, as it goes against their own advertised policies and needs to be publicised if it is another stealth tax.

I will keep you posted, although the auto reply I got says that there may be a delay due to increased demand. I wonder why!

E-receipt