Sydfly

Just made a booking at Lilianfels in Australia on a prepaid rate and was told there will be a 3.5% surcharge for paying with AMEX. when I called to upgrade the reservation using points.

Wasn't there a ruling by the ACCC that on prepaid bookings the hotels are not allowed to charge a surcharge because there is obviously no option to pay prepaid rates other than with a credit card. This is basically a 3.5% increase in rates and just a sneaky way for hotels to generate additonal revenue.

Everywhere else in the world they would be flamed but here in Australia they think they can get away with it! Apparently they charge 3.5% for AMEX (actually a preferred partner of SPG!) and 1.5% for VISA/Mastercard. I find this outrageous especially with the additional AMEX surcharge.

Do they expect that people walk into their sales offices and hand over the cash in person to pay for these prepaid rates? On all other rates you have the option to pay cash at check-out but for prepaid rates they either need to include the surchage in the rate or waive it all together.

By the way there was no mention of a surcharge when I booked online. It said that the rate including all taxes and charges. There was no mention when I clicked on the link "Get complete details about this rate, taxes and other charges" either.

Out of my Element

There's a thread about this here

camsean

thats revoting. take your business elsewhere.

Sydfly

This is simply not acceptable. I'm sure if AMEX finds out that SPG is disadvantaging AMEX cardholders by pushing them to use VISA instead of AMEX they would be pretty annoyed at this SPG policy.

I'm going to dispute the charge with AMEX as there was absolutely no mention of the charge when I made the reservation. I even clicked on the terms of the rate and it didn't say anything about cc surcharges. At least with IHG if I click on the rate details it tells me the rate and whether there is a merchant fee (as they call it in Australia) as well.

Leumas

While I realise a lot of chains in Australia are doing it (not that it makes it any less wrong), I'm seriously thinking about not staying at any hotels that charge this fee.

I hope SPG Corporate (or whoever) can ask some questions, but I doubt there's anything they can do.

TAWS

Jetstar charges like $7 per ticket for using a VISA/Mastercard/AMEX. I don't know what it is about Australia and credit card surcharges.

3544quebec

Its pretty simple. in most countries the merchant agreements between the card issuers and the merchants have a clause prohibiting merchants from charging cardholders more for purchasing with their card.
In Australia the relevant authority decided that there were costs associated with accepting CC payments that should not be subsidised by those using other payment forms and they made such clauses illegal. Merchants now have almost open slather to levy a CC surcharge to recover the merchant service fees that the CC companies charge them.
The main problems (apart from us detesting these surcharges) are airlines which charge flat credit card fees that bare no resemblance to the costs they incur -$7.70 for a QF domestic ticket that may only cost $50(but they do allow BPay payments to avoid this charge) - and hotels.
In general hotels do not offer any other method of payment other than CCs on their websites for advance purchase rates. But according to the law here if they advertise a price on the website eg $200/night they must provide a method for you to pay for the room at $200/night and if they don't they have no right to charge your credit card $200/night + 1.5-3.5%.
The reality is most hotels in my experience are flouting this requirement and if they precharge the CC surcharge you would be well within your rights to insist they reverse the precharge. But unless you are going to pay cash as long as the surcharge has been disclosed at booking they can certainly charge the fee at check-in/check-out.

Accor's rate Ts+Cs reflect the current state of play:

Special Credit Card paymt Charge :
Credit card payments relating to Australian hotels incur a merchant service fee of 1.5% in addition to the total amount payable, excluding prepaid rates.

Priority Club also at least disclose the charge during the booking process when clicking on the rate Ts+Cs but do not mention that they cannot legally precharge a CC surcharge:

Service Charge: 1.5% per stay not included in rate effective 6 May, 2012 thru 7 May, 2012


SPG is probably the least transparent of the 3 groups not disclosing the surcharge during the booking process in the rate Ts+Cs but including it under each individual hotel's information links eg in the case of Lillianfels on their Announcements Page:

Credit Card Policy
A credit card fee applies to credit card transactions. There is a fee of 1.5% for Visa and Mastercard, and 3.5% for American Express and Diners cards.

Whether this represents adequate disclosure I don't think has been tested yet.

Flying Lawyer

So what is the problem? In other countries it is quite normal to get a discount when paying cash. Somebody has to bear the extra costs of CCs and it is nothing but fair (to the customers using cash) to charge these costs extra. And Amex is extremly expensive....

3544quebec

The problem identified by the OP is twofold:
1) It is illegal (big problem) as set out in the above post to charge the surcharge on a prepaid rate without providing an alternate method to pay the quoted rate
2) Disclosure: also as clearly set out in the above post other hotel groups identify the surcharge in the booking process, SPG does not. SPG seems to think it is adequate disclosure to include the charge somewhere on a link from the hotel's webpage - I am not a lawyer so I won't judge whether that represents adequate disclosure from a legal standpoint, but from a consumer standpoint I think not.

rick253

Whilst I totally disagree with credit card surcharges here in Australia, you can contrast them with add on charges in other countries, which are often worse.

Take New York City.

Daily Room Rate. $200.00
City Tax $ 9.75
State Tax $ 8.00
Occupancy Tax $ 13.75
Additional Fee $ 1.50

Total $233.00

To be fair the Australian daily room rate quoted must always include Federal GST which is 10%, but if you add the GST and the credit card fee they are still less than New York.

Guy Betsy

Ya. How else do you book a prepaid rate? But Australia seem to have that stupid surcharge when paying with cards. I'm using a US debit card thru spg.com

Thx

OriginalName

You won't be charged the surcharge since you're using a debit card. The surcharge only applies to credit card settlements.

markis10

No, the surcharge applies to all Visa and MasterCard transactions and you will pay the surcharge, I pay it all the time, this is also detailed at the time of reservation:

The following credit card fees apply and will be charged at the time of transaction. Visa credit/debit: 1.1%, MasterCard credit/debit: 0.8%, Amex, Diners and JCB 2.9%.

Debit cards not used as part of the eftpos system are class as credit cards in Australia, and are different to debit card use in Asia for instance, where in many countries you won't even be able to get a preauthorisation.

potm

When I made a booking for Hilton Sydney last year the prepaid rate did not have a surcharge added. There was a surcharge for post paid if you paid with a credit card at checkout though.
Most of the larger companies in Australia do not apply credit card surcharges, especially for mastercard and visa. They can probably negotiate better terms on the fees.
I agree that if SPG have not clearly disclosed the surcharge, you should not be liable to pay it. 1.5% and 3.5% also seem very high.
At least in Australia, all the taxes and fees are included in the price displayed at the start. That's one positive thing we have.


On another note the RBA has capped the interchange fee at 0.8% for mastercard and visa from 1 July. Credit card providers have reacted by cutting points earn rates. What should follow is also a reduction in surcharges as there are also rules which ban a merchant for surcharging more than the cost of accepting the card payment (I'm not sure if SPG are following these). We'll see what happens though.

FozBoy

What property is this? I can't find it on www.spg.com