Holidaymakers pay extra in credit card fees
July 24, 2007 by admin
Filed under News, News-Credit-Cards
British holidaymakers will pay up to £258 million in fees over the summer as their credit card companies charge them for making transactions abroad, a new study has found.
According to the report from the Post Office, Britons will collectively spend around £9.4 billion, though many are unaware that they will incur extra costs for borrowing while overseas.
Of those people questioned, nearly half said that they had no idea that such extra charges would apply, while 37 per cent believed that their lender did not levy an additional fee, despite research showing that the vast majority of firms charge on average 2.75 per cent per transaction made.
In addition, 26 per cent of people admitted to failing to budget for their holidays before they went away, meaning that they left themselves vulnerable to having to borrow and get into debt.
“We are now four times more likely to spend on plastic abroad than 10 years ago,” said the PO’s Gary Fitton.
“It’s shocking not only to see how much people are being penalised to use their cards on holiday, but how few are aware of this.”
The findings come soon after the UK payments association Apacs revealed that fraud committed abroad on UK-issued cards totaled £118.2 million last year, an increase of £36 million.
