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Gift Ticket Fee

Thursday, September 13, 2007

With airline ticket prices getting more expensive, taking the bus may present the best opportunity to travel on the cheap. But hidden fees can make fares less attractive. Greyhound, for example, imposes a $15 “Gift Ticket Fee” if you use a credit card to buy a bus ticket for someone else.

A consumer in Illinois was socked with two Gift Ticket Fees when she bought bus tickets for two fellow students over the Internet. The sneaky surcharges increased the price of each ticket from $36 to $51—a 42% markup.

The fee often falls on low-income customers who are trying to help out a friend or relative who can’t afford a bus ticket. Greyhound apparently put the charge in place in 2003, justifying it as necessary to protect the company from the “risk of fraud.”  How would an extra $15 dissuade a crook, who presumably won’t even be paying the bill?

For bus travelers in the Chicago or Los Angeles area, Megabus.com has recently emerged as a competitor to Greyhound, and offers some extraordinary bargains, with fares as low as $1 if you buy tickets well in advance.

Credit card surcharges violate VISA and MasterCard merchant agreements, and are prohibited in some states like California. The Gift Ticket Fee leans perilously close to a credit card surcharge, since it is not levied when riders pay with cash.

If you’ve been bitten by the grey dog’s $15 fee, you also could try disputing it through your credit card company. The bank may side with you, or may simply credit the disputed amount, since it often costs banks more to investigate small disputes than it does to simply waive them.

What is your Fee of the Week? E-mail us at the Hotline.

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