Avoid PayID payment to Qantas

[N0mad]

i have used Pay ID to pay fees for reward bookings ~$350, it went through instantly. I may have been lucky.
Separately, i've also used to to deposit funds with some online bookmakers and had it go through instantly.

Weirdly, the online bookmakers were through my CBA account which would always hold the first and second payID to individuals for 24hrs but not for the bookmakers.

I'll probably be more careful after this, as i think it would be a bigger nightmare trying to trace a PayID than a credit card or Bpay transaction.

 

[justinbrett]

Not even if the remaining balance is paid with a credit card?

My Amex says the full amount has to be paid with the card.

 

[RichardMEL]

How much is travel insurance worth? What about the various loyalty (i.e. QFF points) points you earn using your credit card? What about the zero liability for fraudulent transactions and the ability to get a refund (or request a chargeback) instantly? For many paying that extra 1-2% is simply the cost of doing business.

You assume every card being used has travel insurance, loyalty points/schemes etc attached. MANY people own the most basic low/no fee CC's without all those bells and whistles (apart from chargeback etc). Not everyone owns or uses a high spend/powered card with all the extras. Now I do and that's a definite value for me, bu I also recognise that many out there do not have those incentives (and/or don't know about chargebacks and so on).

As pointed out by others there are their own reasons to not want to use a credit card and they're valid to them.

(oh and gift vouchers are useful to avoid fees but troublesome on many other levels, and don't always suit one's needs)

Can't assume everyone works or feels the same way.

 

[Franky]

I used to think, "Of course, just use a damn credit card," but then I also remember I once didn't own a credit card.

Some people don't own a credit card and may have difficulty obtaining one. Times have changed since I joined AFF (about when I started significantly travelling independently) and it is admittedly simpler to obtain a credit card now (even if it's the most basic of the basic, but hopefully with interest free days).

Yes, debit cards could also be used, though it still attracts processing charges.

Agree with the debit cards, but we were basically forced to obtain CCs in 2017 when doing a fair bit of O/S travel when we could only hire a car using a CC. We could pre-book the car with the debit card, but on pick-up, the CC was needed.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I disagree - merchants aren't going to absorb it so they will bake it into the price. Everybody will, you don't get out of paying it. So there's no transparency, and when you're talking about things like an airline where you might not have options, you're stuck with it. If you pay cash, you're paying for other people's credit cards, there's no option to save.

It's only fair that everyone pay the same cost for payment processing irrespective of method used. Sure some will point to certain methods using slightly less, but at the end of the day, every method will cost something. And if it incentivizes customers to ditch debit cards and bPay that is really a public service as it is something you should never ever use in the first place. In terms of transparency, well in what respect? If it isn't baked into the price and you only find out after entering your credit card number, that's not very transparent if you ask me. If you see one price when shopping around it is very transparent how much it'll cost you.

And if we want to go on about transparency a reasonable question to ask is why sales tax isn't paid for separately? In that way you could see how much sales tax you are actually paying on an item, whereas here you don't know. It could be 10%, sure. But it could also be 0%. Some items may have excise duties attached. Better to just break it all down and pay it separately, eh?

The Australian system of user pays, and making it illegal to profit from the surcharges, is the way to go IMO. The old Australian surcharges (where they could profit from them - like the taxis at 10%) was the worst.

How do you know merchants aren't profiting from surcharges? They list a percentage and that may or may not be the actual cost incurred. And it's also a false economy. So suppose there's a 1.5% fee to the merchant to accept a Mastercard payment, fine does that mean that it costs the merchant 1.5% more to accept Mastercard over cash? Think about it for a second. There is a cost to handling cash (sometimes referred to as a shoe leather cost). You may need to hire security to haul away large amounts of cash, there is a risk of theft from employees, risk of counterfeit, etc. Credit cards eliminate all the risk to the merchant. Surely that is worth something?

Not even if the remaining balance is paid with a credit card?

Most credit cards require the entirety of the trip to be paid for using the card. Some cards will let you use a combination of the credit card and frequent flyer points (i.e. Air Canada Aeroplan cards in Canada for instance when redeeming for Aeroplan awards), but by in large it's an all or nothing proposition and that makes sense. They are offering you a benefit for using their card and so obviously they want you to use the card and not simply hang on to it for one perk.

I'll probably be more careful after this, as i think it would be a bigger nightmare trying to trace a PayID than a credit card or Bpay transaction.

And that's the rub. Yes you may save 1% or 2% but if you ever need a refund good luck. And I would also point out that if you get the right card you end up ahead using a card than some other method of payment. To give you a concrete example, the Qantas Ultimate AmEx card awards 2.25 points per $1 spent at Qantas. American Express attracts a 0.89% payment processing fee on Qantas. Now are you telling me with a straight face that 2.25 Qantas Points is worth less than 0.89 cents? If you believe that, I've got a bundle of rights to sell you!

 

[justinbrett]

It's only fair that everyone pay the same cost for payment processing irrespective of method used. Sure some will point to certain methods using slightly less, but at the end of the day, every method will cost something. And if it incentivizes customers to ditch debit cards and bPay that is really a public service as it is something you should never ever use in the first place. In terms of transparency, well in what respect? If it isn't baked into the price and you only find out after entering your credit card number, that's not very transparent if you ask me. If you see one price when shopping around it is very transparent how much it'll cost you.

Why should someone paying cash be forced to pay for someone else to pay with a points earning credit card?

It's different if there is no such mandate (like here) and the retailer chooses not to charge a surcharge (like most retail here) - but if they are forced to absorb it, we all pay. Sure you can shop around with retail, but often the places that charge surcharges are the ones you can't shop around as much (paying bills etc)

And if we want to go on about transparency a reasonable question to ask is why sales tax isn't paid for separately? In that way you could see how much sales tax you are actually paying on an item, whereas here you don't know. It could be 10%, sure. But it could also be 0%. Some items may have excise duties attached. Better to just break it all down and pay it separately, eh?

Sales tax (GST) is transparent. It's listed separately on your receipt. And if there's items that aren't taxed, they'll be noted as such (have a look at your woolies receipt next time you go). It's 10% flat rate federally, so the rate never changes, it's just on or off.

Excise / duties etc are a wholesale tax and not paid for by the consumer.

How do you know merchants aren't profiting from surcharges? They list a percentage and that may or may not be the actual cost incurred. And it's also a false economy. So suppose there's a 1.5% fee to the merchant to accept a Mastercard payment, fine does that mean that it costs the merchant 1.5% more to accept Mastercard over cash? Think about it for a second. There is a cost to handling cash (sometimes referred to as a shoe leather cost). You may need to hire security to haul away large amounts of cash, there is a risk of theft from employees, risk of counterfeit, etc. Credit cards eliminate all the risk to the merchant. Surely that is worth something?

It's literally the law they can't charge more than it costs them. I know you're new here, but the rest of us have been through a whole saga over surcharges and this is the end result. The regulators monitor this closely.

The whole cash surcharge idea has already been attempted.

 

[RichardMEL]

I'd also add that companies/websites here are transparent about CC surcharges too (eg QF). Again, that's a choice that we as consumers make. I really don't mind paying a bit more at my local noodle shop small business to cover their cost for my benefit (ie paying for the points more or less).

The other option is that the small business absorb the cost by upping prices for all. Well, then there's no transparency is there and an opportunity to profit in doing so.

(of course these days with rising costs of living, I've seen quite a bit of price rises, specially with food, that would be more than inflation could explain, but knowing that costs of doing business have also skyrocketed - it's hard to tell how much of it is actual passing on costs vs a bit of extra profit taking - specially in the post covid time).

anyway this is a separate discussion/argument to issues with PayID.

 

[encryptededdy]

I think this is inherently a problem with any sort of transaction where the retailer doesn't "pull" money from your account (e.g. Credit Card, Direct Debit) and instead you must "push" money to the retailer's account (PayID, BPay) and wait for them to detect that the money has arrived.

I feel the main issue with this system (or even BPay & POLI back when that was a thing) was that if something were to fail, nobody in customer support is empowered to actually go find that transaction and help you resolve the issue, and so it just becomes a he said/she said (the money sent! no, our system doesn't say we received the money!)

I understand it's hard though, you probably can't just have customer support agents digging through transaction reports for the account meant to receive the money, and sometimes it's all owned by a 3rd party vendor anyway (as is the case here).

 

[anat0l]

Agree with the debit cards, but we were basically forced to obtain CCs in 2017 when doing a fair bit of O/S travel when we could only hire a car using a CC. We could pre-book the car with the debit card, but on pick-up, the CC was needed.

I wish this was better known when I was travelling in my work as a vacation scholar (still in undergrad). I only had a debit card then and was hiring a car for the very first time (of course the car was booked by my employer). I had no idea about security holdings / deposits or the like. I thought I was just handing over my card so they could take an imprint in case I decided to ditch.

Long story short - I had the most bare minimum left in my bank account for the duration of the four day work trip. (In fact, the first authorisation didn't even work because they were trying to hold a far greater amount). The man at the counter didn't want to hear anything of how a debit card is different to a credit card and just flatly told me to sort it out. Fortunately my accommodation was already paid for. It took at least two weeks for the held money to come back into my bank account.

Within months, I got my first credit card - a co-brand Amex Gold card.

 

[tdimdad]

There is a cost to handling cash (sometimes referred to as a shoe leather cost). You may need to hire security to haul away large amounts of cash, there is a risk of theft from employees, risk of counterfeit, etc.

I've asked about this from a few small business owners (sole trader type). To them, it's free to deposit their daily cash takings onto their bank accounts. If they don't account for the time spent in counting & delivering the cash, it's seemingly free for them. Hence, no surcharge required. At the same time, their bank or payment system provider takes a cut from every electronic payment and/or there is a monthly fee which they would average out across the customer base.

And that's the rub. Yes you may save 1% or 2% but if you ever need a refund good luck. And I would also point out that if you get the right card you end up ahead using a card than some other method of payment. To give you a concrete example, the Qantas Ultimate AmEx card awards 2.25 points per $1 spent at Qantas. American Express attracts a 0.89% payment processing fee on Qantas. Now are you telling me with a straight face that 2.25 Qantas Points is worth less than 0.89 cents? If you believe that, I've got a bundle of rights to sell you!

Lets use the QF east coast CR in Y as the base case: 8,000 points + tax & fees ($51 in this example). The Amex Qantas Ultimate gives 1.25 points /$1 in normal purchases --> I need $6,400 worth of normal daily life to obtain 8,000 QFF points. The merchants usually charge up to 3.5% for payment fee but lets be overly generous and use 1.5% (which has been used in other examples in this thread) --> I pay $96 in fees. If I now go and redeem that CR, I have ended up paying $147. Plus, there's the $450 annual fee for the card to pay.

To me, this would make no sense, however straight my face would be. Where can I deliver your bundle of rights, sir?

In fact, I've purposefully downgraded my credit cards to basic ones. They make most sense to me in my current situation. I get a better travel insurance separately and that's enough for me now. YMMV, naturally, and you go with what makes most sense to you.

 

[RichardMEL]

I would agree that there is definitely a "cost" to handling cash - but it's not so easy to attribute as it is for an electronic transaction where you know the fee and it's charged when it's done, and available via the provider to the merchant.

Handling the cash, storing it (for example, between bank runs for possibly larger amounts), and taking to/from the bank (so possibly the time of an employee, or the owner's time) plus the risk for carrying cash and all that, but I guess managing the cash has a cost too - managing the "float" for each day's trade, accounting for all cash at end of day and reconciling with the register or accounting system etc.

Probably the less cash a business deals with is probably easier these days given these kinds of activities imo. I've certainly heard anecdotally that many smaller businesses can find it a PITA to do those accounting processes and regular bank runs (rather than what the bank may or may not charge for deposits). Don't some banks charge to count coins? I seem to recall something like that - but that may be just for personal use as opposed to business - I don't know.

I'm not against cash at all. I find it has its place. I carry a (small) amount with me just in case (<$100) and absolutely for a business that doesn't take eftpos/cards, or if their terminals are down then hey ripper. I think that happened last year sometime I was at a place and they asked for cash as their terminal was down. It was actually quite weird to pull it out of my wallet (all the dust that came out! ) and I had to laugh a bit at that, but it was fine of course. I'm not entirely pro the digital economy/cashless society - not so much for the people who don't want to be tracked and like black market transactions and under the counter payments, but more for the fact that if there is a technology fail (like we just had for many with Optus, or more simply a merchant issue) then you're in trouble. I reckon there will always be a place for cash, and should be,

However I prefer to use my points earning card. I pay it off promptly so have never paid an interest charge, and where it happens I accept the extra transaction costs for the (apparent) benefit of the card services - points, insurance, etc - but do understand that there IS a cost for this and it's a choice.

 

[CMA222]

.....Probably the less cash a business deals with is probably easier these days given these kinds of activities imo. I've certainly heard anecdotally that many smaller businesses can find it a PITA to do those accounting processes and regular bank runs (rather than what the bank may or may not charge for deposits). Don't some banks charge to count coins? I seem to recall something like that - but that may be just for personal use as opposed to business - I don't know.

......I'm not against cash at all. I find it has its place. I carry a (small) amount with me just in case (<$100) and absolutely for a business that doesn't take eftpos/cards, or if their terminals are down then hey ripper. I think that happened last year sometime I was at a place and they asked for cash as their terminal was

We are getting off topic so briefly -

Of the few remaining CBA Bank branches that are available for cash deposits (personal or business) they have had for a number of years an automatic coin counter, for Customer use, that spits out a receipt and the person takes the receipt to the teller and it is deposited into whatever account the customer nominates. There are also after hours note and coin counters that allow direct deposit after the machine has counted it. CBA used to advertise this as "a benefit" of doing business with them as it was available 24 hours. Westpac / St George had a similar service with note/coin counters but this has almost totally disappeared. Cash out is obviously 24 hours at an ATM - if you can find one.

Despite all the apparent disadvantages cash still is favoured by some and it is not affected by any form of machine malfunction or internet connectivity. I know of one chain of restaurants that offer a 5% discount if the Customer pays in cash, which is openly encouraged.

Some businesses also take PayID payments as an alternative to any card being required.

 

[JohnK]

I used to think, "Of course, just use a damn credit card," but then I also remember I once didn't own a credit card.

My parents have never had a credit card but then again they don't use the internet.

My brother is 3 years younger than me and retired around 40 years old. He has never had a credit card and is not able to get a credit card. He uses my credit cards.

 

[SuePa]

Qantas had my money and now, apparently, it takes 5 - 10 business days for my money to be refunded

My BPay money was returned this afternoon - 9 days.

 

[danielt25]

I've used payID with Qantas before with no problems. Today I booked a few flights with PayID and have received generic error - empty reference although the payments have been debited and PNRs generated. (Qantas app says flights are confirmed but no tickets issued) flights don't appear when logged into Qantas website

Called up Qantas about the generic error to see what's up and they said the payment has been received and awaiting ticketing. But then I've just received emails saying flight wasn't completed and to complete payment details by midnight. They said they would extend the payment deadline until Nov 24.

Update: Flights were cancelled per the midnight deadline, as per the Qantas email.

 

[Quickstatus]

Credit cards eliminate all the risk to the merchant. Surely that is worth something?

Except in transaction clawbacks which are rare

There is a cost to handling cash (sometimes referred to as a shoe leather cost). You may need to hire security to haul away large amounts of cash, there is a risk of theft from employees, risk of counterfeit

Yes for us, the cost of handling cash is far greater than the cost of the CC merchant fee. Especially the security issue for staff carrying large amounts of cash.
I would say that for most business handling cash is very costly, except those who like to be paid in cash.

Legislation which says a merchant cannot profit from CC transactions does not require the merchant to account for the cost of the cash alternative. Basically there are no payment method which does not incur a cost to the merchant - there is always a cost to move X from A to B.

 

[Lynda2475]

except those who like to be paid in cash

Usually so they can under report income as a tax dodge

 

[danielt25]

I will keep using bpay code 747600, am used to the way it operates.
Am so scared about this payid bizzo, what happens if you type the wrong email address as reference, or mistype if you as I do, have big fat paws, er fingers.
I think the payid reference (as a ref), is only usable once only.

Actually when you input the PayID e-mail address, it brings up the amount due. If you've accidentally entered the wrong PayID email address it won't be recognised and won't allow you to pay.

 

[danielt25]

Update: upon calling Qantas again (the business rewards contact center) - in which someone answers the phone within a few minutes - VS calling the standard Qantas line as a QF Gold (was platinum until last month) - and waiting 20 minutes - they were able to locate the PayID funds and associate the funds to the booking and issue me tickets. Quite frustrating (initially) being told the funds were received, then receiving an email saying pay by midnight, then calling again the next day to be told the reason the tickets weren't issued was because the funds were not received, then to get on to the business rewards line who sorted it out.

 

[clifford]

This is an interesting thread. Not sure why anyone wouldn't just use a credit/debit card, but each to their own.

Personally, never had a payment problem with Qantas, apart from many occasions it wouldn't compete the transaction for its own reasons (eg phantom availability).