Surcharges for airfare credit card bookings? Stingier rewards programs? Here's why...

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Turns out there's a logical, if still annoying, explanation for increases we've been seeing in recent years in surcharges being imposed for using credit cards to book airfares, and for the seeming declines you may have noticed in the value of your credit card and frequent flyer rewards programs.

It's not just banks and airlines screwing us, either. Well, not entirely that. It has as much to do with what are known as "interchange fees" - the amounts that merchants pay to banks for the right to let customers buy things at their businesses using Visa and Mastercards issued by those banks. Ironically, it was reforms to the interchange fee system, designed to benefit consumers, that have helped lead to those new surcharges and declining rewards programs.

A comprehensive report on the issue appears in The New York Times' excellent 'The Card Game' series. Shame it took a US newspaper to explain why Aussie customers are getting jammed, though.