United in card game, agents up in arms

A move by United Airlines to shift some of the cost of selling tickets is setting off the very type of reaction that United doesn't need just now. The once-largest airline, number two United told many travel agents that they'd have to absorb the fees imposed by credit-card issuers in ticket sales. The fees, amounting to 2% to 3% of the total, are just part of the total $710 million bill that United pays each year, but for travel agents, who make little more than that on each ticket they sell, it's a real threat.
Agents, already burned by cuts in the ticket-sale commissions paid to them by airlines, have naturally rebelled. If the move pushes travellers to shift further from buying through travel agents to buying at an airline's own website, they'll lose opportunities for comparison shopping, Steve Tracas of vacation.com says. Agents can offer the widest spectrum of price information, says Tracas, a former US Airways sales executive.
But it could have further implications: on-line travel agencies like Orbitz and Expedia would likely have to start charging booking fees, fees that they had once charged but began cutting earlier this year, says PhoCusWright, a travel consultancy. Kevin Mitchell, the airline gadfly from the Business Travel Coalition, says the move is a way for United to lower its credit costs and so build its cash reserves in preparation for another bankruptcy filing.