American Express Membership Rewards - Reduced UK acceptance?

Maybe it is just me, but has anyone else noticed a decline in the number of merchants accepting AmEx in the UK? Quite a few places have commented that they no longer accept or are not going to in the future. Worrying! :td:

Tell me about it. So many places have stopped taking Amex; today I discovered that even my dentist has stopped taking it! As a means of payment Amex is increasingly irrelevant.

Presumably the increasingly 'select' merchant base is one of the justifications for the £ 1,800 Centurion fee that is now expected of me.

They're 'avin a larf.

Tell me about it. So many places have stopped taking Amex; today I discovered that even my dentist has stopped taking it! As a means of payment Amex is increasingly irrelevant.

Presumably the increasingly 'select' merchant base is one of the justifications for the £ 1,800 Centurion fee that is now expected of me.

They're 'avin a larf.

Funny, it was my dentist too today! :D Missed out on quite a few MR points. "For everything else there is MasterCard" indeed... :rolleyes:

Funny, it was my dentist too today! :D Missed out on quite a few MR points. "For everything else there is MasterCard" indeed... :rolleyes:

You should be lucky, I've never heard of any dentist accepting any credit card in Germany. It's invoice, cash or "EC-Card" (Maestro debit card) which is pretty much the same as cash.

I'm not noticing any major downturn in places accepting - I know B&Q was one exception recently. On Saturday, I managed to get a mainline car dealer to take my AmEx for full payment of a 2nd hand car for my sibling (without any fees!).

Not seeing much difference. My main gripe is that most insurers won't take Amex for premium payments. When I bought a car recently I put the full deposit on Amex with no issues at all

All,

Tried to pay with Amex and H&M yesterday, and was told they no longer except it. This followed walking past my local Ping Pong restaurant, which as a sign in the window saying, they no longer take Amex. I thought they were trying to add locations instead of removing them??

I presume that they know that most people have an alternative to Amex and given the restaurants are suffering slightly the extra percentage here or there is well worth it.

Heck, I am looking at the Abbey Zero card to be used for foreign purchases given the 0% commission on their interbank rate over Amex's 2.99%, sod the points! :)

B&Q have also recently stopped accepting it, and my local Indian restaurant has too (although it still has the Amex embossed bill holders - now with a sticker over the Amex logo).