Thats a new one for me. While checking out and paying for our rental this morning along with the actual price of the rental, you have Administrative fee, which I guess covers cleaning, your tax, insurance if you want it and now for the first time I have ever seen a "Convenience Fee" of $44.95 to use my CC to pay for the house rental instead of writing a check. Really? Who writes checks anymore for something like this? Is the CC company really charging the rental company a fee?

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Take a look at the posts I just made in the check in time thread.

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Any business that accepts credit cards through a merchant account is paying "processing fees" (or a % of that transaction) to a credit card processor and to the card issuing bank. Rather than eat the fees, it looks like this rental company (and i'm sure they aren't the only ones) is choosing to pass those fees along to you in the form of a convenience fee. There are only 10 states that make surcharges/convenience fees illegal, North Carolina is not one of them unfortunately.

I am merchant account reseller and I agree with you that its a silly fee that shouldn't be passed on to the consumer. IMO Any business who accepts credit cards should see these fees as a cost of doing business and eat the cost. If they aren't willing to do that then they should change/pad their prices accordingly and not add this "fee" as an additional line item.

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PM's either bill the guest or the owner for this fee. in my opinion, the better rental companies bill owners instead of the guest.

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My CC processing company charges me a fee of 2.75% plus 50 cents per transaction. This fee is built into my profit margin just the same as any other overhead expense.. Actually I like it because I do not have to make bank deposits and risk the hassle of dealing with NSF checks. The funds are directly deposited into my bank account the next business day. The upside is if the customer pays cash, I can make an additional 2.75% profit. If the customer asks for a discount for paying with cash, I can grant it and still not affect my profit.

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The added fee for the credit card has been around as long as I have been here (29 yrs) in one form or another. 8-10 years ago when the PMs all went to inclusive prices they just rolled the credit card fee into the add-on fee they add to the rental. It's the difference in the advertised fee and the owners fee. Some PM add $300+to the owner fee and they get the advertised fee with that extra amount added in. I didn't think anyone still included it as a line item - Convenience Fee

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What credit card companies do with language is brilliant.

The credit card companies have convinced us that using the card is free. There is absolutely no cost at all.

They did this by flipping the argument regarding "cash discounts". They flipped that on its head by saying that a business is charging a "surcharge" for a customer using a credit card, not a discount for cash. It was a brilliant idea and worked for them, gaining them law after law protecting their profit. As they have as much money as they need to buy and sell as many politicians as they need this continues to be a litigated issue.

I do wish more businesses would offer a discount for cash (as opposed to a surcharge for credit).

Steve

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The added fee for the credit card has been around as long as I have been here (29 yrs) in one form or another. 8-10 years ago when the PMs all went to inclusive prices they just rolled the credit card fee into the add-on fee they add to the rental. It's the difference in the advertised fee and the owners fee. Some PM add $300+to the owner fee and they get the advertised fee with that extra amount added in. I didn't think anyone still included it as a line item - Convenience Fee

Thanks for the info Tim. I must say I never notice it until now

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Adding 3% to cover the cc fee is fair. I always ask for a 3% discount if I pay cash. If not here is my card, We get 1-2% back in cash. Win either way.
Profit margins are slim, 3% is big.

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Thats a new one for me. While checking out and paying for our rental this morning along with the actual price of the rental, you have Administrative fee, which I guess covers cleaning, your tax, insurance if you want it and now for the first time I have ever seen a "Convenience Fee" of $44.95 to use my CC to pay for the house rental instead of writing a check. Really? Who writes checks anymore for something like this? Is the CC company really charging the rental company a fee?

Were you paying for next years rental ? If so I would have sent a check if that's how they wanted to be.

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Thats a new one for me. While checking out and paying for our rental this morning along with the actual price of the rental, you have Administrative fee, which I guess covers cleaning, your tax, insurance if you want it and now for the first time I have ever seen a "Convenience Fee" of $44.95 to use my CC to pay for the house rental instead of writing a check. Really? Who writes checks anymore for something like this? Is the CC company really charging the rental company a fee?

Were you paying for next years rental ? If so I would have sent a check if that's how they wanted to be.

I was not, and to tell you the truth the Convenience Fee didn't really click until I had sent everything. Next time I'll write a check

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For guests who book directly, we do personal checks. Since full payment is due 60 days prior to check-in, I've never had problems with NSF checks. Since our guests save considerably in fees and a discounted rate booking direct, they've never complained about not paying by credit card. Besides, I don't want to encourage folks to go into debt to take a vacation in our home.

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This one always bugs me but I get cash back so it makes the pain of the fee hurt a little less. That being said, the CC surcharge seriously chaps my ass if I want to pay my federal or property TAXES online.

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PM's either bill the guest or the owner for this fee. in my opinion, the better rental companies bill owners instead of the guest.

Actually quite the opposite.
The "better" rental company that advertises your home is there to make moneyand should absorb the fees, it is THEIR cost of doing business not the owners or the renters.

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If you ever wonder why so many businesses don't take American Express? It's because they charge an extra 1 to 1.5% over Visa, MC, and Discover.

I noticed there are a lot more businesses on Hatteras that won't take AMEX, since they are small and independent. I guess that's why AMEX promotes small business Saturday after Black Friday. Trying to court them.

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So, if I read right this is a fee that should not be charged by contract with the credit card companies? Has anyone written a complaint? I have not found this charge on my rental but would certainly protest. In this day and age using a credit card should be standard instead of outside the norm.

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If you ever wonder why so many businesses don't take American Express? It's because they charge an extra 1 to 1.5% over Visa, MC, and Discover.

I noticed there are a lot more businesses on Hatteras that won't take AMEX, since they are small and independent. I guess that's why AMEX promotes small business Saturday after Black Friday. Trying to court them.

This used to be true, which is why many people still believe this, but its not the case at all anymore. When i started as Merchant Account re-seller, Visa and MC had the cheapest buy rates compared to AMEX and Discover. The cheaper my buy rates, the cheaper I could resell them to my merchants. A few years back, Discover decided to put their fees in line with those of Visa and MC. AMEX followed suit soon after with their "Opt Blue" program. While AMEX may still be slightly more expensive to accept than the other big 3 card brands, the difference is probably closer to 15 to 30 basis points. I always tell my merchants that are worried about the price difference to still accept AMEX, but don't advertise that they do. If someone walks through their door and all they have is an AMEX card, would they really want to lose the sale?

Also, anyone saying they are still paying exorbitantly high AMEX fees are either being taken advantage of by their current merchant account provider, or haven't shopped rates in so long that they probably still are overpaying for AMEX acceptance.

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