Plea to retailers: Please accept American Express

dark^knight

Amex is the only credit card I have, and I pay it off in full every month, and I do get cashback on all purchases.

I get really annoyed when I try to pay by American Express, and I am told 'I am sorry, we take any card but American Express'. :mad:

I can appreciate it does cost the retailer a little bit more (OK more than a little bit) to process Amex transactions. However, I believe they lose more money in the long term because those customers will go elsewhere.

What's annoying is that retailers that used to accept Amex before no longer accept it, prime example is B&Q.

ukjoel

I got rid of mine as so few accepted it.
The cashback was nice but got so frustrated having to use a second credit card for most transactions I called it a day.

Went over to mastercard tesco for the points, although I did hear the santander card is good for petrol as it gives 3% back or something similar.

I dont blame shopkeepers for saying no. If they offered everyone else a 2%-5% discount for cash then you would soon be at the cash machine taking out the notes.

mancitychick

I am with the op. I love my amex, always my first choice to pay with. Never gets declined unlike my other cards, due to "security"! Also when I had my purse with all my money and cards in it stolen in Thailand I was able to go to their offices the next morning and pick up a replacement card plus cash advance.

Makeandsave

I got rid of mine because not many places accepted it.

brettcta

not many places take it because amex's charges are much higher

mattyprice4004

I'm a retailer, and will not take Amex. The charges are mental.

If a retailer would rather lose sales than take a card, it says a lot!

Just going to have to deal with it, it's not going to change unfortunately.

visadeath

I often wonder why AMEX charge such high fees to the shops, but I do also notice that places are adding a fee if you want to pay by AMEX so perhaps if all shops used that method everyone could be happy?

bluenoseam

OK so imagine all retailers now accept Amex - their fees are HUGE and do you honestly think that in this climate businesses are going to absorb that? If they do then they have less money to spend on staffing making it potentially longer for you to get served & the price of goods will increase for all customers all for the minority of those who use amex, if they charge those who use amex a surcharge they'd get slaughtered for it by the minority.

it's not a difficult decision to take, the majority of card transactions are not made on amex so the money they "lose" by not taking amex is minimal especially as the majority of amex customers simply use a debit card or pay by cash if it's not accepted - so no need to change the system for amex's own greed.

Azari

I try not to shop at places that accept amex because I know that I am subsidising other people's cashback as the retailer's costs will be higher because of amex fees.

Please, all retailers, get rid of amex. You know it makes sense.

withabix

Plea to American Express: Please stop charging retailers so much for accepting your card.

Hang on. There goes your business model.


Therein lies the problem.

Evilm

There are plenty of other cards that have cashback, loyalty points etc that you could get . Unless you are a person who can't control themselves having two cards will not kill your credit or cause you huge problems.

We have an Amex. Its not a traditional cashback one but a Nectar one and we get a significant amount of points each month. If we can't use that we have another which gives us another type of loyalty points.