Less places taking Amex? 15 January 2020 at 2:25PM edited 30 November -1 at 12:00AM in Credit Cards 24 replies 1.5K views

fun4everyone

Purely personal experience this but are less places taking AMEX now? My local restaurant stopped, and my dentist and now the car dealer I use also (no idea if this is a local thing or nationwide).

Am I going to have to switch to stoozing a 0%er some point soon? Retailers appear to be moving away from my favoured cashback card.

blue.peter

I haven't noticed any reduction in the number of businesses accepting my AmEx card. There's no firm that I use that has accepted it in the past but no longer does.

zx81

I find more accept Amex now than did a few years ago.

fun4everyone

Ok that's good. I did find out that BMW stopped taking it recently the other day which is quite a large change. No idea if national or just the local dealer.

MallyGirl

only my local Indian restaurant has stopped but that seems to be a technology issue - they have to virtually hang the card machine out of the window to take any cc payments. They still featured on the shop small list.

lisyloo

I find more places take it now and even on market stalls. Theres a new system (izettle I think?) with white key pads which market traders use now that takes amex.

It’s a bit odd sometimes, certainly in London because if you go to a market (say brixton for example) about half the places will say no cash and the other half will say cash only.
There have always been small independent businesses like restaurants and dentists that won’t use it because of the charges and they aren’t big enough to negotiate a better rate, but PayPal and izettle have opened up avenues.

You still need a back up.

Tallaght

I used to have a blue Amex but there was loads of places that would not accept it including car hire firms.

dcfc67

Costco used to be Amex only, they now take Visa and Mastercard.
Which is useful as I got rid of my goldcard before the annual fee kicked in.

born_again

MallyGirl wrote: »

only my local Indian restaurant has stopped but that seems to be a technology issue - they have to virtually hang the card machine out of the window to take any cc payments. They still featured on the shop small list.

Odd as it would also effect debit card payments.

fun4everyone

Some government services used to take it iirc (not passport renewals but car tax did), now I don't think anything does on there.

Malkytheheed

dcfc67 wrote: »

Costco used to be Amex only, they now take Visa and Mastercard.
Which is useful as I got rid of my goldcard before the annual fee kicked in.

Costco were not AMEX only....:rotfl: