Qantas claims no profit from surcharges Surcharges have long been the bug bear of anyone catching a taxi or booking a flight when paying by credit card. New rules that came into effect on Monday are an attempt to limit the surcharges retailers can add. It is still early days but, so far, little has changed. Cabcharge adds a surcharge 10 per cent each time a taxi fare is paid for electronically. The only way to avoid the charge is to pay with cash. Qantas has a surcharge on international flights of $30 per person and $7.70 on domestic flights, which includes flights to New Zealand. Under new guidance by the Reserve Bank, electronic payment charges should be limited to ""reasonable cost of card acceptance"." The guidance allows credit card issuers to require retailers to limit surcharges to ""reasonable costs"" in the terms of the contracts they have with merchants. But there will be no enforcement of the guidelines. Matt Levey, head of campaigns at consumer group Choice, said the surcharges are often more about revenue raising that recovering costs. Choice estimates MasterCard or Visa transactions cost, on average, about 1 per cent to process while Amex and Diners Club are more expensive, up to 2 per cent. Visa said that from Monday all businesses that accept Visa cards in ""face-to-face"" transactions must restrict any surcharging to as little as 1 per cent. A spokesman for Cabcharge said the company will not be lowering its 10 per cent surcharge. The charge is a ""service fee"" and not a ""surcharge"" and falls outside of the Reserve Bank's guidance, the spokesman said. The surcharge applies to all electronic payments with Cabcharge. A Qantas spokesman said the airline is waiting for the card issuers to publish their new policies before it determines whether to make changes to surcharges and that will take some time to assess. ""Claims that we profit from our surcharges are simply wrong,"" the spokesman said. Income from the surcharges does not exceed the costs and never has done, he said. Mr Levey dismisses the notion that surcharges can simply be called a ""booking fee"" or ""service fee"" or ""fee for financial services"" to circumvent the new guidelines. Choice is not anti-surcharge. There are good reasons for paying with credit cards - convenience, fraud protection, travel insurance and rewards programs. It costs merchants to accept card payments but the surcharges should be reasonable. ""We hope that the smart merchants and smart retailers will see that the writing on the wall for excessive surcharges,"" he says. However, as there is no government agency charged with enforcing the new rules it is up to consumers to complain to the retailers or merchants about their excessive surcharges. ""These major companies are sensitive to public opinion,"" he said.