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Scoot reinstates credit and debit card processing fees for Singapore flights

Scoot customers departing from Singapore must now pay a fee of up to 2.26% for credit or debit card payments. Avoid the fee by using Google Pay or PayPal (while you can!).

Remember when Scoot eliminated payment processing fees? Neither does Scoot, apparently. 

Back in September 2024, Scoot reintroduced these junk fees five years after congratulating itself for eliminating them worldwide. Payment processing fees were initially limited to itineraries originating from Australia, Japan, Taiwan and Thailand. However, my sources indicated that Scoot always intended to expand them to Singapore and the rest of its networkโ€” it was just a question of when.

Well, โ€œwhenโ€ has finally arrived, as Singapore residents booking Scoot tickets with a credit or debit card must now pay an additional processing fee of up to 2.26%. 

The silver lining? For now, you can avoid this by paying through Google Pay or PayPal. Unfortunately, I understand that this exemption is only temporary, and Scootโ€™s payment processing fees will eventually expand to cover these channels as well.

Scoot reintroduces payment processing fees

Paying with a credit or debit card will now cost you extra on Scoot

Effective immediately, customers booking Scoot flights originating from Singapore are subject to a 1.4% to 2.26% processing fee for the following payment methods.

Card Type Payment Processing Fee
(per transaction)
Mastercard 2.26%
Visa 2.26%
American Express 1.93%
Japan Credit Bureau (JCB) 1.81%
UnionPay 1.40%

This fee will be calculated and added at the final stage of booking, after youโ€™ve entered your credit card number. 

Example: 2.26% fee for Mastercard payment

Google Pay and PayPal are not subject to this feeโ€” yet. However, my understanding is that this is only a temporary reprieve, and fees will be added to these methods in the future. 

Eventually, the plan is that the only fee-free payment options will be:

  • Bookings paid entirely with Scoot vouchers
  • Bookings paid entirely with KrisFlyer miles
  • PayNow

Itโ€™s no secret that Scoot has always been trying to nudge passengers towards these methods, given the lower costs they incur. For example, even before this change Scoot was already labelling PayNow as a โ€œpopular choiceโ€, whatever that means.

All payment processing fees are non-refundable, but in any case Scoot fares are almost always non-refundable except in situations of medical emergencies, bereavement, or a schedule change of more than two hours. Itโ€™s unclear what happens to payment processing fees in those scenarios.

If you have a KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card and want to enjoy the additional benefits like an extra 5kg baggage allowance, standard seat selection and priority check-in and boarding, do remember that you must book your tickets through this special portal. It is not possible to select Google Pay or PayPal options here, so you will have to incur the 2.26% admin fee regardless. 

Other countries with payment processing fees

Singapore joins Australia, Japan, Taiwan and Thailand as the countries for which Scoot charges a payment processing fee. 

American Express, JCB and UnionPay fees are fixed at 1.93%, 1.81% and 1.4% respectively, regardless of point of departure. Visa and Mastercard fees vary depending on country.

  Visa Mastercard
๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡บ Australia 1.05% 1.05%
๐Ÿ‡ฏ๐Ÿ‡ต Japan 2.37% 2.37%
๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ฌ Singapore 2.26% 2.26%
๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ผ Taiwan 2.48% 2.48%
๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ญ Thailand 2.16% 2.16%

Why reintroduce payment processing fees?

Letโ€™s turn the clocks back to September 2019, when Scoot removed its payment processing fees worldwide. I distinctly remember reading a press release about this, but even though it still shows up on Googleโ€ฆ

โ€ฆScoot has attempted to scrub it from existence.

Nice try, but the internet never forgets.

The evolution of payment systems over the years, driven by technological improvements, has helped to significantly defray the associated costs required to support and maintain the payment infrastructure.

โ€ฆ

Mr Lee Lik Hsin, Scootโ€™s Chief Executive Officer, said, โ€œWhen Scoot first started, we offered a limited range of payment methods at a higher implementation and maintenance cost. As we expanded globally and heard our customersโ€™ feedback, we took advantage of advances in payment technology to implement many more payment methods to improve our customersโ€™ experience.

In order to pass on the savings to our customers as our costs came down, we have since March 2018 progressively removed payment processing fees in selected markets. Now, we are ready to do away with it globally. We hope this gives our customers better value and more reasons to escape the ordinary with us.โ€

-Scoot Press Release

So, what are we to make of all this? Has there been some sort of global technological regression that necessitates the reintroduction of processing fees? Have payment systems deteriorated to an extent that the only way to escape the ordinary now is by paying a surcharge?

Well, no. Scoot simply saw that competitors like Air Asia and Jetstar didnโ€™t follow suit (though AirAsia no longer has processing fees for flights starting and ending in Malaysia), and has decided it might as well improve its margins. 

The only good news I can see here is that Scoot has not reverted to its previous system of imposing a flat fee per passenger, per flight. That, quite frankly, was extortive and a clear money grab, since it had little to do with the actual cost of processing payments.

๐Ÿ’ฐ Scootโ€™s Former Payment Processing Fees
(as of 1 March 2018)
  Payment Processing Fee
(Per passenger, per segment)
๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡บ Australia A$10
๐Ÿ‡ฏ๐Ÿ‡ต Japan JPY 800
๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ฌ Singapore S$10
๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ผ Taiwan TWD 240
๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ญ Thailand THB 200

Of course, Iโ€™m under no illusions that payment processing fees were always there, just baked into the fare. But so long as they were, Scoot had to adjust its fares to ensure the overall price remained competitive, or lose out on business from OTA search results. As you can imagine, the LCC market is extremely price-sensitive. 

By charging separate payment processing fees, Scoot can make its flights appear artificially cheap in OTA searches

By charging payment processing fees separately, Scoot is able to show a lower price upfront during the all-important search stage, before increasing it later in the booking process (a similar analogy would be resort fees charged by hotels). Itโ€™s basically a kind of drip pricing, which makes prices less transparent to the consumer.

Should you still use a credit card with Scoot?

With the reintroduction of payment processing fees, youโ€™re basically paying for the privilege of earning credit card miles. Whether or not that makes sense boils down to how many miles you earn, and how much you value a mile.

Hereโ€™s the cards which earn the most miles for Scoot tickets.

Card Earn Rate Remarks
UOB Ladyโ€™s Card
Apply
4 mpd Max S$1K per c. month. Must choose Travel as bonus category
Review
UOB Ladyโ€™s Solitaire
Apply
4 mpd Max S$2K per c. month. Must choose Travel as bonus category
Review
DBS Womanโ€™s World Card
Apply
4 mpd Max S$1.5K per c. month
Review
KrisFlyer UOB Credit Card
Apply
3 mpd No cap
Review
Maybank Horizon Visa Signature
Apply
2.8 mpd Min. retail spend of S$800 per c. month, capped at S$10K of air tickets per c. month
Review

Assuming a 4 mpd card and a valuation of 1.5 cents per mile, a surcharge of 2.26% can still be justified. It offsets the value of the miles somewhat, but you should still come out ahead. 

In any case, rewards are not the only benefit of paying with a credit card. I can think of at least three other reasons:

  • Paying with a credit card has cashflow benefits, since you have up to 55 interest-free days to pay (versus PayNow which deducts money instantly from your bank account)
  • Paying with a credit card gives you chargeback protection, in case something goes wrong with your trip and you want to raise a dispute (just witness how slow airlines were to offer refunds for cancelled flights during COVID-19)
  • Paying with a credit card can give you complimentary travel insurance 

Since Google Pay and PayPal are exempt from payment processing fees at the moment, your best bet would be to pair these with one of the cards in the table above. Youโ€™ll still earn the same rewards as if you used a โ€œnakedโ€ card.

Conclusion

Scoot has added credit and debit card processing fees for flights departing from Singapore, after previously reintroducing them to Australia, Japan, Taiwan and Thailand.

This fee will add up to 2.26% to the cost of your trip, which is annoying to say the least, as no one likes to see their payment jump at the final step. However, you can circumvent it โ€” for now โ€” by choosing Google Pay or PayPal as your mode of payment.

Scoot will eventually close this โ€œloopholeโ€ though, and after making so much fanfare for removing payment processing fees, itโ€™s disappointing to see them return.

What do you make of Scoot reintroducing payment processing fees?

(HT: Louis)

Aaron Wong
Aaron Wong
Aaron founded The Milelion to help people travel better for less and impress chiobu. He was 50% successful.

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chk

Pay by Visa/MC incurs higher fee than payment by Amex or JCB. Canโ€™t absorb that fact

OJW

That shouldnโ€™t be surprising โ€“ Amex and JCB allow key merchants to directly negotiate their rates with them, whereas Mastercard and Visa do less of that. Your smaller merchants wouldnโ€™t have the same volumes to do that kind of negotiation, therefore your average Amex transaction would cost more to those smaller merchants.

Ben

This is in poor taste.
Scootโ€™s only hand to play is by offering the cheapest fares.

If they canโ€™t then why bother taking the airline that is always late and borderline inhumane

Tony

I think the idea is that if the CC fees are upfront, it makes the ticket cost higher especially when the customer base is more sensitive to price differences. I think the fee of 2.26 percent is higher than what they actually pay to the CC Companies. Planes are more regularly delayed and flight changes are not uncommon.

Tim

Just boycott this lousy airline

Andrew Johnstone

As they allow Paynow payments, the Credit card processing fee is really a non issue, as have a simple way to remove

Sean

Another reason, if one were needed, not to fly on Scoot

Traveler

Time to scoot away from Scoot?

Daryl

It seems like as of 16 feb 2025, they have disabled the paypal option

W. T.

I got stung by their 2.48% โ€œprocessing feeโ€ when flying Taipei โ€“ Tokyo last Januaryโ€ฆ Ugh

Only reason I could justify flying Scoot here was that I got a 20% discount on my ticket that offset the fees (Krisflyer milestone) & could use my booking for a bit of a Pelago discount

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