The short answer
Tiered pricing groups transactions into two or three buckets with increasing rates. The processor defines which transactions belong in which bucket and can change those definitions without altering any advertised rate. That makes the model impossible to audit against published interchange tables.
The advertised rate is the trap
A 1.69% qualified rate is genuine — it just applies to a shrinking minority of cards. Rewards cards now dominate consumer wallets, and they rarely qualify.
How to escape it
Ask for interchange-plus. It requires no new hardware, no new application in most cases, and gives you a statement you can verify line by line.
Key takeaways
- Bucket definitions are written by the party charging you
- Advertised qualified rates cover a minority of modern card volume
- Moving to interchange-plus is usually a paperwork change, not a migration
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