Flight Centre unhappy about new surcharge laws
Flight Centre says it may raise service fees to combat the cost of new laws designed to crack down on excessive credit card surcharges.
The laws, which cleared parliament on Monday, mean merchants can be fined up to $108,000 if caught overcharging customers paying by credit card.
The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission will be responsible for policing the law, while the Reserve Bank of Australia will set the guidelines for what constitutes appropriate fees.
“We’re not particularly happy about it, but we don’t think it’s going to be a huge impost on us either,” Flight Centre managing director Graham Turner said.
“It might mean we have to put our service fees up a bit to recoup any small loss of margin.”
Mr Turner said about one-third of Flight Centre’s leisure transactions were done by credit card.
“It’ll be interesting to see what comes out of the detail because we, obviously, have a risk with chargeback and that has been acknowledged by the RBA.”
Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au
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