B&Q now accept AmEx 25 May 2021 at 9:35AM edited 25 May 2021 at 9:35AM in Credit cards 8 replies 1.3K views

jay1804

From the AmEx offer on my account it looks like B&Q now accept AmEx (Instead of paying via PayPal). The offer is in store only.

Spend £40 or more, get £5 back

NaughtiusMaximus

jay1804 said:

From the AmEx offer on my account it looks like B&Q now accept AmEx (Instead of paying via PayPal). The offer is in store only.

Spend £40 or more, get £5 back

Excellent, thanks for the heads up.

Up until now B&Q were probably the non-Amex retailer I spent the most at.

s_r

B&Q used to accept Amex (in the early 2000s when I used to work there) - not sure when or why they stopped taking it (as there were a significant chunk of customers who used to pay with their Amex cards). However, pleased that they have finally started to re-accept them!

sausage_time

Bummer - missed this.  Just done my regular pilgrimage and saw the Amex sign on the new POS terminal.  Better late to the party than never.

DullGreyGuy

s_r said:

B&Q used to accept Amex (in the early 2000s when I used to work there) - not sure when or why they stopped taking it (as there were a significant chunk of customers who used to pay with their Amex cards). However, pleased that they have finally started to re-accept them!

I imagine its the normal macho corporate thing... B&Q said they were a big important company and deserves a better rate and AmEx said no... see Amazon -v- Visa for a more high profile d!ck measuring contest.

Reality is that no AmEx cardholder has only an AmEx card and for all of AmEx's "our customers are richer than yours" type marketing to merchants is really fairly weak when most will simply switch cards rather than walk away.

WillPS

DullGreyGuy said:

Reality is that no AmEx cardholder has only an AmEx card and for all of AmEx's "our customers are richer than yours" type marketing to merchants is really fairly weak when most will simply switch cards rather than walk away.

If that's so, then why is acceptance of Amex improving so much? Why would Lidl/Aldi in particular, who work on very tight margins, want to accept a card which will eat further in to those margins?

DullGreyGuy

WillPS said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Reality is that no AmEx cardholder has only an AmEx card and for all of AmEx's "our customers are richer than yours" type marketing to merchants is really fairly weak when most will simply switch cards rather than walk away.

If that's so, then why is acceptance of Amex improving so much? Why would Lidl/Aldi in particular, who work on very tight margins, want to accept a card which will eat further in to those margins?

You could ask that question about any credit/charge card they choose to accept... ultimately someone has done the sums and believes it stacks up. Occasionally it can be for other reasons, a former client was looking to do a joint venture with Lloyds back when they issued AmEx cards and clearly there was a requirement to accept cards the bank had issued otherwise it'd look odd.

AmEx fees have come down notably relative to Visa/Mastercard who themselves started issuing higher tier cards (Mastercard World Elite or Visa Signature) which come with higher fees and hence you see more retailers accepting them. 

mjm3346

WillPS said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Reality is that no AmEx cardholder has only an AmEx card and for all of AmEx's "our customers are richer than yours" type marketing to merchants is really fairly weak when most will simply switch cards rather than walk away.

If that's so, then why is acceptance of Amex improving so much? Why would Lidl/Aldi in particular, who work on very tight margins, want to accept a card which will eat further in to those margins?

Don't know what deals they managed to negotiate now that Amex need to chase the business

WillPS

DullGreyGuy said:

WillPS said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Reality is that no AmEx cardholder has only an AmEx card and for all of AmEx's "our customers are richer than yours" type marketing to merchants is really fairly weak when most will simply switch cards rather than walk away.

If that's so, then why is acceptance of Amex improving so much? Why would Lidl/Aldi in particular, who work on very tight margins, want to accept a card which will eat further in to those margins?

You could ask that question about any credit/charge card they choose to accept... ultimately someone has done the sums and believes it stacks up. Occasionally it can be for other reasons, a former client was looking to do a joint venture with Lloyds back when they issued AmEx cards and clearly there was a requirement to accept cards the bank had issued otherwise it'd look odd.

AmEx fees have come down notably relative to Visa/Mastercard who themselves started issuing higher tier cards (Mastercard World Elite or Visa Signature) which come with higher fees and hence you see more retailers accepting them. 

Mastercard World Elite and Visa Signature (if you can find one) issued in the UK are subject to the same interchange cap as everything else tho. The merchant shouldn't be charged more for processing these cards over standard Mastercard and Visa cards.

Amex's non affinity cards (Plat, Gold, Green, Rewards, Plat Cashback) are not subject to the cap and one assumes that the merchant is therefore paying a higher rate for these, if not all Amex cards. Of course Aldi and Lidl might have been able to negotiate a good deal too.