Amex credit card

Jay68

I have recently received my new American Express credit card but am disappointed to find that not everywhere accepts them. For instance my local Lidl store doesn't accept them as well as a few local traders and some of the internet sites I use also don't accept them. I am regretting applying for the card now as I never know where it will be accepted and I wrongly thought that American Express was accepted everywhere.

SLZ

Is there something we can help with... American Express acceptance?

TadleyBaggie

If the internet site accepts PayPal, you can link your Amex card to your PayPal account and use that way.

Anthorn

Jay68 wrote: »

I have recently received my new American Express credit card but am disappointed to find that not everywhere accepts them. For instance my local Lidl store doesn't accept them as well as a few local traders and some of the internet sites I use also don't accept them. I am regretting applying for the card now as I never know where it will be accepted and I wrongly thought that American Express was accepted everywhere.

My local Lidl doesn't accept any credit cards at all. Most people with Amex including myself use a VISA or Mastercard as a backup. In general small retailers don't accept it while larger retailers do. Amex comes into its own with travel provided you don't use small retailers

bengalknights

Generally its ideal to have alternative as backup in my case i have a VISA credit card.

For net shopping generally it depends on what merchant they are using ive found those with paypal accept it and also those that use barclardcard or worldpay also accept it.

System

Probably best to calculate how much Amex shopping you'll actually do to see if it's worth keeping.

It's true that Paypal helps considerably online (for Amex) but be aware that it often remove credit card protection.

If your card is actually issued by someone other than Amex themselves (e.g MBNA) then I've heard that these are being discontinued.

kerrazoo

The benefits of American express are slightly offset by them not being accepted as widely as the other cards... and can leave you occasionally having to change cards when going to the shop.


But for big shopping and petrol, and amazon etc it's fine so it depends how much small shopping you do as to how much of an issue this is.


There is a website called who accepts amex which gives you a good run down of acceptance. You can google that and find out.


Amex also gives first access on some concert tickets and other deals, so it is worth having I think

Jay68

Thanks everyone for your advice re my card. There are some good ideas and alternatives which I will be looking into further. Thanks.

System

IMO Amex is fine as a long as you have a Visa/MasterCard too.
Whereas, a Visa/Mastercard is fine solo.

Jay68 wrote: »

Thanks everyone for your advice re my card. There are some good ideas and alternatives which I will be looking into further. Thanks.