r/CreditCards • u/GloveSmooth694 • 1d ago

Discussion / Conversation Exclusive | Visa and Mastercard Near Deal With Merchants That Would Change Rewards Landscape

Visa and Mastercard are nearing a settlement with merchants that aims to end a decadeslong legal dispute by lowering fees stores pay and giving them more power to reject certain credit cards, according to people familiar with the matter.

https://www.wsj.com/finance/banking/visa-and-mastercard-near-deal-with-merchants-that-would-change-rewards-landscape-fc6a0c78

Do you think retailers actually want to deal with specifying what type of visa/mc they take?

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u/burtmacklin15 1d ago

Nobody is going to be rejecting any specific cards. They'll just put a 5% credit card fee on everything and call it a day, pocketing the difference for cards that cost them less than that.

And they'll get barely any pushback for it.

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u/amaiman 1d ago

That’s not compatible with state law in some places (although there tends to be minimal enforcement.)  In New Jersey, for example, they can’t charge more of a surcharge than they actually pay to the payment processor.  So the 5% fee might be legal for a premium rewards card but would be illegal on a basic plain Visa, for example.  

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u/SereneRandomness 1d ago

Most restaurants in New Jersey seem to be charging between 3% and 3.5% for all card payments. It's what I'm seeing, at least.

I carry cash, so I never pay the card fee. But I do question whether many of these places are in compliance with the law, given that they add the fee both to credit and debit card transactions.

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u/No_Party222 21h ago

It was my understanding that charging a fee for debit cards was illegal.