Virgin Australia reveals new credit card booking fees

Who will you fly with instead? QF's fee structure is the same. 

Hah!  This is hilarious.  Everyone complained about the fixed credit card charges saying that the airlines were gouging.  Now that they are being forced to pay what it actually costs to process these transactions you can see that the airlines were actually telling the truth when thay said that they never actually recovered all the costs with the fixed fees.

Be careful what you wish for as it can end up biting you in the a**.

That's fine. Let's work up the food chain.

1. Why do CC companies need to charge in the first place?
2.  Why is there a different policy for charging these fees when travel is booked ex AU versus other location. This is not unique to QF. BA and AA does the same charging the fee from their home market and each other's home market.
3. Why do some merchants not charge the CC fee, even on high value purchases but the airline industry does? Is the fee charged by the CC companies different from the fees charged to other merchants?
4. Why are Australian hotels the other notable exception to CC charges? Why do hotels overseas not charge these CC fees when Australian hotels do?

I think these underlying questions need to be addressed first to get to the heart of this. Looking at things in isolation with respect to the airline industry alone is insufficient.

The charge is not fixed at $70 though, that's just a cap. If you were to buy a standard international fare, let's say for arguments sake it's a $1500 economy seat, you'd be paying $19 in CC fees rather than the old $30.

You're right, though the article has been written with the assumption that the typical business traveller will fly in Business Class.

In that case, if the fare was over about $5300, then one would be up for the full surcharge amount of $70.

For VA Sydney to LA return in Business Class, the likelihood of the fare being that much or more is very high (pun intended).

I don't do Y.

On the other hand, a business class ticket purchased/paid for before Sept 01/16 being total $4440.00, the charge (cc) was $30.00. After Sept 01/16 the charge will be $57.72. I suppose it will depend on where you decide to sit in the plane.

I haven't read the ACCC report, but perhaps the airlines are now legally obliged to charge the actual percentage imposed by the CC company (up to an agreed cap) without being able to 'undercut' their competitors by offering a slightly lower percentage charge (which QF would probably match anyway).

Charging CC fees is good for transparency on the one hand but also creates a whole lot of resentment when people don't feel they should be paying them.

I believe that CC fess are a business cost and should be absorbed rather than passed on to customers. And to those that say this would only lead to higher fares for those paying cash, I'd respond by saying that most business already factor in the cost of credit to their pricing. These surcharges are pure profit, particularly for fares over about $200.