Eurostar rail fares credit card fee

Eurostar rail fares has introduced a £3 credit card booking fee, claiming costs imposed by the card companies are “out of control”. Debit card bookings will remain free..

Eurostar rail has claimed the £3 credit card charge, is far lower than any of its competitor airlines, which it listed as British Airways, BMI, easyJet, Ryanair, Air France and Brussels Airlines.

It introduced the credit card charge yesterday at the same time as scrapping a £5 charge for bookings made through its UK call centre.

The charge would offset costs levied on Eurostar by credit card companies and debit card bookings remained free.

Eurostar rail fares commercial director Nick Mercer said: “The costs levied by credit card companies are out of our control and we are having to pass these on, but we want travellers to have the choice of avoiding extra charges and thus all .

“We’re scrapping the fee for booking through our British call centre in order to give travellers even better value and service.”

The train operator said removing the call centre charge would bring telephone bookings down to the same price as online bookings on eurostar.com.