We used "Aloha eCard" and "Aloha Credit" when we first switched to Aloha give/take 5-6 years ago. About two years ago, a Heartland Credit Card person approached us (many times) and tried to get us to switch to them. When we asked Aloha, they said if we used anything else, we had to pay a merchant fee to Aloha in order to use a third party gift solution that was around $400 a year (per location). When we asked the Heartland lady about it, she said they couldn't do anything about it. We started looking around because we were paying a percentage rate + interchange in addition to a per card swipe. Eventually we came across Mercury and FirstData, both of which told us they didn't have to use Aloha to process the merchant accounts or gift cards. (We chose Mercury.)
Fast forward about a year ago, we acquired one location from another individual who had Micros. Micros had a similar issue with something called "Merchant Link" which was $450 a year to process credit cards. Once again, Mercury was able to get around it with what they said was a "direct driver" while FirstData said they could only give that for 75+ locations, but they would take care of 1/2 of the fee, per location. In regards to software, we are part of the "Aloha Software Membership Program" and they give us the upgrades when they go "Gold." Micros upgraded us for free when we took over the new location in exchange for a service agreement for one year, which we agreed to since immediately one of the KDS' in the kitchen needed replacement.
So, I'm not sure how the fees/driver/merchantlink works (and maybe its something local to here) but ever since we switched to Mercury we never paid any of the "fees" for Aloha or Micros. I do know that the local Aloha guys are offering some very good deals right now to upgrade to new NCR equipment, but we haven't really looked into that at this time because our current equipment is working fine.
Hope that helps?! Happy Fourth of July!
