travel agent with no credit card fee

[Torneyboy]

Says NokTang:

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Hi, sorry if my other post came accross wrong. It was directed at the general public, not you individually. The "surcharges" are disclosed up front when you buy a ticket or pay for your hotel. It is not "added" later without your knowledge. You can simply pay cash if you don't want to pay the surcharge. Application as some do the VISA and AMX etc. generally accepted contract language(buried deep in small script even in english) is simply IMHO not fair. These agents in BKK/Thailand seem to me up front and nice people. Same for Hotels. Had you ever seen some of the disgusting conduct by various Farangs(male and female) towards some of the sweetest Thai girls working at a hotel reception you would perhaps catch my drift. They want to please you and give good customer service, not be lectured in the rules and contracts of VISA or AMX.

 

Okay, where were we?

 

They are not chargeing more than published fares. period. I know of no one who has paid more than he could by going directly to the airline for a published air fare. LESS in 99percent of the instances, if not 100percent.

 

take care yourself.

 

Nokiie

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OK.

I have used many times an agent under Intra hotel ..she will not take a card at all..good service i am usually travelling same day and i know is a hassel for them but tickets allways at the airport and on time.

Good luck to them all.

[Guest]

As I said, for those of us who understand it's not unusual in Thailand, it's not a problem. We don't feel cheated.

But for those who haven't come across it before, they may feel someone is pulling a fast one.

Maybe a better way of dealing with the 'Aussie' would have been to take him aside to explain this to him.

 

I have been in hotels that don't have a surcharge and some that do but have waived them for me.

 

Not everyone knows what we know.

 

Not having a go, by the way. Just info for anyone who may read the thread in the future.

 

For Thai domestic flights, I book directly with the airline as there are no surcharges.

For International flights, I pay for tickets with my credit card because it gives me 250 pounds for accommodation and food if my flight is delayed by 8 hours or more and 500 pounds on top of that if my luggage is delayed by 48 hours or more. Plus it affords me better protection from a dodgy business.

[NokTang]

The Aussie was picking on a girl who could not just knee him in the balls and tell him to fuck off. She is a girl just tring to make a go in life being a reception desk agent vs. selling her body. This was a Farang setting, "sex tourist" around. The guy was blameing her, treating her like she owned the place when he knew she did not. I hate it when these guys(seen it other places as well) think they can act like bully's to girls in Thailand.

 

Take him aside and explain it? Well, I thought the photo would do the trick in one flash, and it DID. He signed his credit card receipt and hit the door. Maybe he disputed it, maybe not, quite a nasty fucker so maybe he will dispute it.

 

FYI, as I said, most hotels of this size(small) would rather not even accept credit cards but they do as a customer service.(trust me on that part, this specific example) When guys act like this it not only causes stress, it reduces the chances these "regular" girls are going to ever even have friend like relationships with farangs like you and I, guys who can accept their choosen place as such and not think about haveing sex with her first and foremost.

 

cheers!

 

Nok the Kook

 

 

 

[Guest]

It's funny you should talk about this, because my best and longest standing Thai friend is a hotel receptionist.(7 years)

I wouldn't think about having 'relations' with her or most Thai girls for that matter.

 

 

 

[june11]

I've never seen ANY travel agent in thailand that does NOT add the CC surcharge. I do know that it is "illegal" in the USA (or, more clearly, breaks the contract with visa or mastercard and they should be reported to the latter), but I do not know if there is such a contract in thailand.

[think_too_mut]

>Anyone know a travel agency in Bangkok that does not add a surcharge for using a VISA card? I'd like to reward them with a good chunk of business; as in business class. business class fares look VERY high right now despite firesales in economy going on. Ouch.

 

Glanced through the thread and could not find any names nor phone numbers provided regarding your original question. Hope my post helps a little.

 

I used my visa card to pay for a holiday package, there was no extra charge for "non-cash handling". The agency was

 

www.successtravel.net

 

their email address is

 

travel@success.net.th

 

Phone: 02 3900 410

 

379 Sukhumvit Soi 63 (Soi Ekkamai)

 

A girl (called Siriwat or Siriwan, I think) looks after the mail all day, any query should be dealt with pretty quickly.

 

Short taxi ride (45 Bht) from Ekkamai bus terminal but no real need to go there, everything can be sorted out online.

[Guest]

My experience is places catering to foreigners tend to do it the most. For instance, haven't seen CC charges at department stores, but often see them at travel agencies and hotels. I once sincerely asked the owner of a tiny travel agency why they did the adder and the response was "everyone in Thailand does it". It is also interesting that higher end hotels are the ones with the highest percentage extra charge when CC companies actually will be charging them at the lowest rates. These hotels understand that people will be paying by corporate card and not bother or have a difficult time coming up with that much cash on checkout day. If this is not a scam, someone tell me. I was pleased someone posted a while back they faxed their hotel bill to the credit card company showing a line item for the credit card fee and were reimbursed for it.

 

My solution is cash, but when that is not practical bring my business to the good egg. As for rants, it is true the desk person is a casualty of the cross fire. The source of the desk person's grief is not someone standing up for the promise given to them, but the owner scamming them. Even if it is a little bit for each person, how many people like hearing "little bit for you". Everyone reacts differently to that because it is the code word for scam.

 

[chilli13]

you're right Olavi does charge 3% surcharge, but your agency has changed their URL to:

www.entravel.com

cheers!

[SingaporeSteve]

This is the EXACT situation as it occurs in Thailand and I work for a company in Bangkok that owns the 2nd largest travel agency (but no names here) in Bangkok.

 

A travel agency in Bangkok has 2 sets of fares to work with.

 

Firstly published fares are the official fares which are very high and not often used. On these airfares the airline will accept the credit card merchant fee and the agencies administer the charge on the airline's behalf. Your CC number is then shown on the ticket. Any refunds have to go back to the card number shown on the ticket under the payment line. The agency receives a commission from the airline for selling these fares, after the event as the money from the CC company goes directly to the airline.

 

Secondly, there are 'negitiated, consolidator, bulk' fares - All are the same thing and are basically airfares below the official selling price. These are fully sanctioned by the airlines concerned however at these fare levels they REFUSE to accept credit card merchant fee's. These fare's have no commission built in and its up to the agent to add their own markup to the price they have to remit to the airline.

 

In this scenario the airline cannot accept the merchant fee as they do not know what is the actual selling price by each agent. They are just interested in getting the fare they have quoted to the agent.

 

Therefore if you buy a ticket in scenario 1 you can pay by card and on your statement it will show the name of the airline as the merchant. In scenario 2, the accpeter is the agent and it will show that agency name on the statement. The agent is offering you 2 choices under scenario 2. Either you pay cash for the ticket at his/her selling price or if you pay by card, you pay the actual surcharge that the agency will pay to the card company.

 

Key points here:

 

1. An agent is not a retailer in terms of the general law - they are purely an agent for the service provider (think of insurance brokers here)

 

2. An agent makes a profit of around 2-6% on the price of the ticket he is selling you. Think average fare in Thailand is around 12,000 Baht (trust me on this, it is for most agencies), the income at that average is around 600B per ticket. If they absorb the 2-4% merchant fee they are left with pennies to cover their costs and not even hope to generate a profit.

 

3. You are being offered a choice - its your choosing what you do.

 

Couple of other thoughts. Most agencies are really anti foreign made bookings as they have so much problem with chargebacks from the cardholder. As a rule, we do not do it. The risk is too great for a potential income, on average of 600 baht. Ticket at 12,000 baht means we carry the loss of the full price of the ticket.

 

The peace of mind in using a CC is beneficial particularly as the Thai Travel Agents Assoc has stated that they believe around 70 agents will go bankrupt in the next 2 months because SARS has killed the outbound ticketing business. If you buy a cheaper than published fare, there is no guarantee that you will be able to travel if your agency has not paid the airline. To put this into persective, the agency cannot delay payment to the airlines - there is an airline body called BSP which direct debits agency bank accounts for all the tickets sold every 2 weeks. If the cash is not in the bank and the payment is refused, BSP will terminate the licence and effectively close down the agency as they take away their licence to issue any tickets. All the reporting for ticket sales is electronic so there is no way of hiding which tickets have been issued. There are probably somewhere in the region of 200 Travel agents able to issue their own tickets. Countless others have no licence and have to buy their tickets from one of the 200 licenced agencys.

 

Hope this puts it into perspective.

 

Cheers

[chilli13]

thanks for the insights, but I think we're still not cutting to the chase here

 

now that there's standard published fares there's standard CC merchant fees as well, but what exactly are they as some agencies charge 1.5% & others 5 or 6%?

I'm sure there's a standard fee according to which card type being used with V/MC being the cheapest & Amex/DC being the dearest...

 

So what happens is some agencies use the common CC payment method to attract a few extra pennies the same way another agent have a bit higher cash commision

 

An example:

*travel agency A offers a flight at 10600bt(10000bt paid to the airline) to the customer, but 2% Visa card surcharge(1.5% fee paid to Visa). The agency promotes CC use as he makes 0.5% from it or lets say to cover his 'risk'?

*travel agency B offer the same flight for 10400bt to the customer & adds 3% if paying by Visa instead of cash as he's a bit vary about CC's

 

now which agency would you do business with?

 

peace