American Express Membership Rewards - Points for reporting merchants discouraging customers from using the card

Does anyone know anything about AmEx promotions for giving cardmembers MR points for reporting merchants discouraging customers from using the card ("suppression" is what AmEx calls it)?

I was suppressed out of puting a $12000 transaction on my card by a real estate broker. It was apparently the company policy to not accept AmEx because of the high fee, and it was more or less made clear to me that I would not be given the apartment I wanted if I didn't comply.

I spent 30 minutes speaking to every department at AmEx, and no one knew anything about it. One person in Merchant Services would make note of my complaint, but after wasting so much time, I'm not giving up the information without some serious compensation at this point. This merchant probably does $50-100k in volume a day - that's a lot of money for AmEx in commissions.

d

may be i didnt understand . but i think the merchant has the right to do whatever he wants. i faced lots of this kind of situations in Europe, specially spain. they refuse to accept Amex for large transactions.

they have no problem accepting Visa/MC or they'll give an addetional 5% discount if i pay cash.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by KSA_USA:
may be i didnt understand . but i think the merchant has the right to do whatever he wants.</font>

That's the point. They are not allowed to do what they want, but what they agreed to do by signing the contract with Amex.

If the merchant displays the Amex logo, he must accept the card for every transaction, with no minimum or maximum amount.

Some merchants try not to accept the card, requesting cash or another card. Such cases want Amex to be reported, because it's against the contract signed.

The merchant is free to remove the Amex logo if he is not willing to accept the card.



[This message has been edited by ahrz (edited 08-06-2001).]

There was a promo recently for referring merchants to AMEX you'd like to see accept the card, but I've never heard about any bonus for situations like this.

I am the sales manager for a high end car dealership. We accept CC's all the time up to a certain amount, whereupon we tell the client that the discount rate will be added to the charge if "the margin in the transaction is not sufficient to cover it."

My controller tells me we do a CC volume of about $1,000,000 per month between various parts, service and sales departments.

I've had customers say that they have complained to Amex or Visa about this, and do you know what......we never heard a thing from the CC company.

Wonder why ???

How does that Rolling Stones song go ???

"You can't always get what you want"

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Does anyone know anything about AmEx promotions for giving cardmembers MR points for reporting merchants discouraging customers from using the card ("suppression" is what AmEx calls it)?</font>

I got a bill stuffer at the end of last year about this promotion. It is exactly as Doppy describes it: Amex wants you to report merchants that discourage you from using Amex, even though they are an Amex merchant, and steer you toward another card. The promo piece had a form to fill out and send in, and you got some amount of MR points as a bounty. I don't think I kept it, but I seem to remember that it had an expiration date, which I'm sure is passed now (although they may send these out continually with rolling expiration dates - I don't know). I received it with my Corporate Platinum statement.

Merchants are required by their agreement to accept AmEx, and not discourage customers from using it. This company's policy is to suppress AmEx. If you're going to do that, you shouldn't even accept the card.

Of course AmEx isn't going to piss off a company that was doing a high volume with it. If a company is being reasonable and honest with how they receive credit cards - like your auto dealership sounds, I think that's reasonable.

I had an auto dealer tell me it was against the law to accept a credit card for an auto. Needless to say, we mentioned the incident to the owner of the dealership, with whom we have a good friendship. It's one thing to not want to lose money on a deal, it's another to flat out lie - especially when it is so blatent.

d

I got that form too ! Thank you for the reminder. I actually responded to that postcard like form Amex sent me to report any merchant refusing to accept the card and I'd get 500 MR points.
I called MR CS dept. and asked why the bonus points have not yet posted. The CS rep informed me I had to wait until she verifies about this promotion and if Amex had received my form. I'm going to call again later today to find out if I'm going to receive my MR points. If I get additional info I'll definately post it here. Adios http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by eperaltaotero:

I got that form too ! Thank you for the reminder. I actually responded to that postcard like form Amex sent me to report any merchant refusing to accept the card and I'd get 500 MR points.
I called MR CS dept. and asked why the bonus points have not yet posted. The CS rep informed me I had to wait until she verifies about this promotion and if Amex had received my form. I'm going to call again later today to find out if I'm going to receive my MR points. If I get additional info I'll definately post it here. Adios http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif </font>


Sounds familar! Always get it, and send it, an the MR points do not post, and I call, and they still do not post, and... on and on... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by KSA_USA:
may be i didnt understand . but i think the merchant has the right to do whatever he wants. </font>


All the major cards have contracts that specify that they must take the card for all of their services. I had the same problem with a hotel that said I could not charge catering charges to my card......only room stays. It took several calls to get the ball rolling, but I got to charge my function to the card when the credit card vendor (not AmEX in this case) said this hotel would lose the contract altogether.

Accepting credit cards is a cost of doing business. I'm the customer, and I want to pay with my preferred method (usually a credit card, usually AmEx). If merchants don't want to accept the card because of the fee, they shouldn't accept it at all, instead of getting into a fight about it.

I've given up on merchants who won't accept whatever form of payment they claim to. If I want to make a purchase and they don't want to take the card, I'll take my business elsewhere. Except for this apartment, which is a unique product, I'm confident that I can find every product and service somewhere else.

I tried calling AmEx again, but no one knew of the promotion. After two calls and aggravation, I'm not releasing this information without a significant bounty.

d