"fee-free way to get that price"

What does this even mean? Money handling has been a cost in currency based society since forever. Long before credit cards, business baked their cash processing costs into their goods and services.

Also, read the article. They are 100% allowed to offer a discount for cash payments. Hell they are allowed to offer a discount for electronic payments and charge full rate for cash. Paying less than the sticker price has never been an issue.

No hidden taxes tips or fees. It's a core tenant of Australia, I should never pay more than the sticker price for an item or service.

Lastly, everything I have read indicates that the card rewards systems are suffering and getting worse as a result of this change. But I doubt they will ever die fully (unfortunately).