My sneaky $66 fee shows what credit card perks really cost us

July 26, 2026 — 5:12am

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Of all the financial curveballs most of us expect to be thrown regularly, being hit with a credit card surcharge of $66 last week was not one I saw coming. Yet that’s precisely what happened when I booked international flights and wanted to add a new payment method at the checkout.

That it was going to cost me so much was all thanks to the airline’s schedule of fees which, like all Australian businesses, allows companies to slug consumers with a payment surcharge on credit or debit cards.

This sliding scale fee is based on a percentage of the overall purchase price at the checkout. Currently, this can range from anywhere between 0.2 per cent all the way up to 10 per cent.

By now, we’re all familiar with these additional fees popping up on payment terminal screens. When the percentage is based on something relatively small like a single coffee, it’s minor. But when it’s applied to $10,000 worth of airfares for a handful of people, the ridiculousness of the situation becomes impossible to ignore.

While these fees have long been allowed as a way of helping businesses and companies offset the payment processing fees they are charged by network providers, the practice has come under intense scrutiny as more of us move to a card-only society.

According to the Reserve Bank of Australia, the cost of saying goodbye to cash and becoming increasingly reliant on debit and credit cards is costing us $1.6 billion a year in surcharge fees. But the good news is that this practice will very soon be seriously reined in.

While the perceived perks of airfare points or airport lounge invitations may be........

© Brisbane Times