AmiSight 11/19: New Credit Card Rules May Bring Tiered Checkout Pricing

As a recent legal settlement has given merchants more flexibility on credit card acceptance, using your plastic at the checkout line is going to get a lot more complicated.

The Wall Street Journal reports that a settlement between Visa, Mastercard and U.S. merchants could usher in a new era of tiered pricing at the register, giving businesses more power to charge fees depending on the credit card you use.

While merchants have always had the right to refuse to do business with a payment network entirely, the settlement could allow merchants to pick and choose which categories of cards to accept within a network. This could result in additional fees. For example, a basic, no-frills credit card might come with a surcharge of 2.5% of the transaction amount, versus 3% for a rewards card.

The settlement still needs court approval, and is likely to be contested by some merchant groups, which have disagreed over the fees and other terms in the past.