Amex Shop Small - Spend £10 get £5 back! Saturday 7th December ONLY.

sheer_vanilla

Icecream and gelato places like Scoop & Oddonnos (South Ken) do giftcards so that's another option as can be used later and / or actually gifted.

mark5211

Hope you all had more success than I did today, made a list of participating bars and restaurants in Manchester City Centre and purchased food and drinks in the first one only to be told they didn't accept American Express and never had done and didn't know what Shop Small was, so ended up paying cash! later in the day we went to another large bar and restaurant and was told again that they didn't accept American Express even though both are featured on the Shop Small site, last time the promotion was on I used the card without a problem in Manchester and Leeds but this time was a complete disaster.

bikeman17

I did about £100 worth of oyster top up's using all 3 of my cards at 3 local newsagents. I did call a week before to confirm if they did accept Amex and they all did.

However one newsagent their chip/pin device failed to work.

keiran

I went to several shops/newsagents, spending £120.

When I ask if they take Amex, the merchant usually looks horrified, as though I am about to eat their babies... Whilst Amex probably does charge them more, it seems that some retailers will rather not have a sale than pay the slightly higher charge to Amex. It appears that some of the staff still don't know how the Amex machines and processes work. Many of the shops had no idea of the Shop Small promotion they had presumably agreed to take part in. Some of them actually used the fact that customers would earn £5 from Amex to justify their added charge (in 2 cases, £1 charge extra for using Amex during my adventures on Saturday).


I only used this card on the Saturday for the obvious rewards, but I usually pay using other cards or cash than to face all the awkwardness and difficulties that would arise at the till. What I can't understand is why retailers who really dislike taking Amex sign up with Amex in the first place....why not simply and honestly state they don't accept Amex and avoid the awkwardness all round...?


A useful point for MSE'rs in any future promotion is that Oyster pay-as-you-go cards will load a maximum of £90.... The solution , of course, is to get an additional Oyster card/cards (though presumably only one of them could be registered as your online Oyster card/account), or to load on additional weekly/monthly travelcards which can be done on the same Oyster card

RobinT_3

how long did it take for everyone to get their £5 credit statement?