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yeah, and Walgreens will allow you to buy a 40 cent pack of gum with a credit card. They are surely losing money on that transaction. Your donut shop is losing over 30% when they let you buy a single donut for 1.50$ with your card. That's why sane merchants (often independent) will have a minimum. This isn't a NYC specific thing at all.

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Where do you get this 30% number?

Typical minimum credit charge is 30 cents plus a percentage of the gross.

These are very high interchange numbers. I think it was bad like that in the past, but not today.

interchange can be pretty high, especially for premium reward cards. what changed recently was interchange on debit cards (which used to be much higher in the US). this is why debit issuers no longer offer any real sort of "points" or cashback on debit. and why debit and cash users essentially subsidize credit card users in the US

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