Yes - but since the merchant is the one liable you can assume those costs are being passed down to you either way (key part being the contractual obligation visa/mastercard assert that prohibits the merchant from charging you more for using a credit card). Therefore in the meanwhile you can be covered for fraud and a) get your 1-2% back b) get airline miles - or c) none of the above. Seems like an obvious choice?

Fun fact: The contractual obligation says they can't charge you more for using a credit card. But it doesn't say they can't charge you less for using cash. This is how gas stations get around it. The gas is the higher price, but you get a 10 cent discount for using cash.

Merchants actually can charge more for credit card usage now. It's been permissible since a 2013 lawsuit, except in 9 states where it's prohibited by state law.

Gas stations have a special loophole for that

The point is that for the whole system it's beneficial to move to a more secure system with less fraud. For the individual user of course less so.

Visa and MasterCard have permitted surcharging for credit card use since 2013, as the result of a class action lawsuit.

I don't understand about the contractual requirement for no price differences. Gas stations do it everywhere ... a different price for cash vs cards.

It is an insane marketing speak thing. The contractual requirement isn't for no price differences. There may be a discount for using cash, but they can't word it as being charged more for using a card. The two might be equivalent in numerical terms, but it is the language that is important.

Ah, Apologies there were some changes to this recently (2013) which had slipped my mind (they mostly don't affect New England due to state-based restrictions - which is probably why I'd forgotten):

https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/surcharge-c...