On May 25, 12:17*pm, ian batten wrote:
On May 25, 10:06*am, Jethro_uk wrote:

However, in a situation where a service is nominally offered to the
general public, would a clause insisting you pay by card, or magic beans
be regarded as "unfair". And if not, what *exactly* is the concept of
"legal tender" ?

Legal tender is irrelevant to retail payments.

The idea that shop-keepers have to accept payment in the forms that
prospective customers want to use was pretty much scotched by
supermarkets and petrol stations deciding to stop taking cheques, even
when backed by cheque cards, which precipitated the end of the cheque
card scheme. * * Booking and paying for a hotel room without a card
would be close to impossible, I suspect, although I've never tried it,
and that's a service offered to the general public.

You could pay a deposit by Giro transfer, it is common in Germany, I
believe you can even book Ryanair ticket by this method. With Faster
Payments it would be feasible in the UK as well. One problem is that
you cannot use it to guarantee a room, you actually have to make a
payment.