FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Surging credit surcharges in the US (2019 - 2023)?
Old Nov 12, 2023 | 10:00 am
  #418  
tmiw
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Originally Posted by scubadu
However, as this practice continues to pick up steam (for example, wireless carries requiring debit/ACH for "autopay discounts" etc.) at some point if there was a 3% "overlay" on all of my spend, I'd probably really have to start thinking twice...
That's pretty much what the merchant community hopes you do. In their ideal world, all spending would be on debit cards, or at least lower tier credit cards that cost less for them (but also give few to no rewards or benefits). And to be honest, why wouldn't they try for that when interchange in many other countries is significantly less than it is here, even for higher tier credit cards?

Also, from a societal standpoint, encouraging credit card usage might not actually be a good thing. Fewer rewards being available could very well lower debt overall, for instance, even if we all know that you should only play the CC rewards game if you can pay the entire balance every month.

Personally, we don't have nearly the consumer protections that places like Europe do, so I will be pretty unhappy if the merchant community ends up killing off one of the only ways consumers can protect themselves in the process of getting lower costs for themselves.
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