It’s been a couple weeks since United Airlines shocked the travel industry by announcing that certain agencies would no longer be able to issue their tickets using a credit card.
Yes, that’s right, any credit card — even a United Mileage Plus Visa. Affected agencies would have to accept a check or cash payment from the client. Or they would have to send United cash and put the ticket on their own merchant account, thus both paying the credit card fees, and assuming liability for chargebacks.
Since that time, United has apparently sent out another round of letters, still to a relatively small group of agencies. Agencies sent the original letters were told the policy starts July 20. Agencies in the second round were given a start date of Aug. 3.
But there are already potential legal challenges. For example, United would look to be in violation of the American Express Merchant Agreement.
The agreement, states amongst other things that merchants “must not try to dissuade Cardmembers from using the card, or try to persuade or prompt Cardmembers to use any other payment methods (e.g. cheque.)” It also states that merchants may not “impose any restrictions, conditions or disadvantages that are not imposed equally on all other payment methods.”
In addition, as reported in the Miami Herald, some members of Congress have sent a letter to United asking them to reverse the move. And there are rumors that others in Congress are asking United to delay and justify their decision.
While no one knows for sure, one possibility is that United Airlines floated this as a trial balloon with a small number of agencies to see if the problems outweighed the potential savings.
One thing is for sure: we haven’t heard the last of this issue. And if the idea is withdrawn, no doubt they will be back with something else.
