In the past, I have booked most of my domestic flights in China by using airlines" own website. However, unlike in many other countries where airlines apply a credit card surcharge for online bookings with payment made by using a credit card such as Visa or MasterCard, I have never ever been charged any credit card surcharge whenever I book tickets via Chinese airlines" website.

My question is: Is it the same for walk-up air tickets in China (meaning visiting an actual travel agent in Beijing, Shanghai or any other Chinese city)? Or does it depend on individual travel agent in terms of whether or not they put a credit card surcharge on top of airfares? I have seen conflicting in锛︼集锛诧辑ation on the net as some expats claim certain Chinese travel agents apply 3%-5% surcharges for walk-up customers who are not willing to pay in cash while others said no such surcharge shall be charged.

Any input is highly appreciated. Thankyou.

In my experience, it can be explan like this: if many people buy tickets in travel agent, then the agent will buy tickets from airline company with the name of group, so he can buy oncount ticket, and offer the customers low price tickets. But if you buy this  way you may come across some un锛︼集锛诧辑al agent and be cheeted.

[This post was last edited by 鐞涘矁?鍛￥閻�? at 12/12/07 14:08]

[This post was last edited by 琛岃�呮棤鐣� at 12/12/07 14:08]

master(12/13/07 18:04)

There is not any surcharge for credit card payment if you buy a walk-up airticket in China. However, you may not get the lowest discount for your tickets if you buy in the travel agents. master(12/13/07 18:05)

From my opinion, I always purchase air tickets from Airline"s own e-business system, because they always bring customer lowest discount tickets.

You can use credit card for your airtickets in all agents if they do have POS machine, the surcharge in China should not be added to customer, the merchants should pay that, but because a lot of agents can get commission from airlines, they can provide POS for your purchase. But some of agents do not want to do that because they want to avoid TAX!

Give you some advices to purchase air tickets in China. Go to airlines website directly:
Air China: http://ca.travelsky.com
Hainan Airlines: http://hnair.travelsky.com
China Southern: http://ec.csair.com/B2C/modules/HQ/index.jsp?language=en
China Eastern: http://www.ce-air.com/cea2/zh_CN/reserve/ticket/online/0,15051,100101,00.html?sid=100101

And you also can use this search engine enabled website to search cheap airtickets:
http://jipiao.kooxoo.com/
(note: this websit is more accurate than QUNAR website)

tkx

Thank you all for the replies.

This really depends on your chosen travel agents, some Chinese TAs do charge roughly 3%-5% surcharge if you pay by a non-Chinese credit card (refers to the bank cards issued by mainland Chinese banks, credit cards issued in Hong Kong and Macau are normally still considered as non-Chinese credit card) while others do not.

Surcharges are not allowed under Visa / masterCard / American Express merchant rules and you can contact your credit card issuing bank to have the surcharges refunded. This works far batter than having to argue with the ticketing entity.

Quote:Originally Posted by underh20 Aug 21,08 12:09 AM Surcharges are not allowed under Visa / masterCard / American Express merchant rules and you can contact your credit card issuing bank to have the surcharges refunded. This works far batter than having to argue with the ticketing entity.

Credit card surcharge (or additional charges applied by a particular merchant) is in fact regulated by local legislation.

While rules and regulations set by Visa and MasterCard do not permit surcharging however where local laws permit such surcharging, local laws take precedence over the relevant rules and regulations set by Visa and MasterCard.

That"s why a lot of airline ticket offices and travel agents charge credit card surcharge, especially in Europe.

Quote:Originally Posted by Maccha Aug 22,08 04:27 PM Quote:Originally Posted by underh20 Aug 21,08 12:09 AM Surcharges are not allowed under Visa / masterCard / American Express merchant rules and you can contact your credit card issuing bank to have the surcharges refunded. This works far batter than having to argue with the ticketing entity. Credit card surcharge (or additional charges applied by a particular merchant) is in fact regulated by local legislation. While rules and regulations set by Visa and MasterCard do not permit surcharging however where local laws permit such surcharging, local laws take precedence over the relevant rules and regulations set by Visa and MasterCard. That"s why a lot of airline ticket offices and travel agents charge credit card surcharge, especially in Europe.

We are talking about China here.  There are no local regulations on credit card surcharges.  Hence any merchant in China who imposes a surcharge on purchases made with credit cards is in violation of the Visa / MasterCard / AmEx policies and can be dealt with.  The same applies, by the way, for merchants who impose a minimum (or maximum) purchase amount for credit card use.  There are no exceptions.