I, too, would dump this AMEX card, actually all of my AMEX products, in a split second, were it not for starwood's inexplicable and very unfortunate partnership with these inept bozos (AMEX) which has, for the moment, handcuffed me to AMEX. So, I'm stuck, as we all are, until/if/when starwood wakes up, realizes the vast, virtually immeasurable business being indirectly left on the table through the indefensible AMEX policies. Talk about misery loves company.

BTW - think about this new perspective that hit me. I had a discussion with paypal regarding the so-called AMEX/paypal stalemate this last week which had me scratching my head...though I've long felt this joke of a $2500 30-day rolling paypal-only limit was due 100% to AMEX's gross misunderstanding of, and phobic fear of, the concept of electronic funds transfer, I suddenly got a very strong sense that *MAYBE* paypal DOES NOT WISH to encourage more AMEX charging by forcing AMEX to remove this ABSURDLY LOW LIMIT which is an insult to AMEX cardholders in good standing who may have worked years to establish useful lines of credit.

QUESTION: Why, I rhetorically asked myself ?

POSSIBLE ANSWER: Because PAYPAL HAS TO PAY THE SAME INFLATED DISCOUNT RATES all merchants who accept AMEX have to absorb versus Visa or M/C discount rates (much lower). Thus, it is actually to PAYPAl's CLEAR ADVANTAGE to ensure that the bulk of credit card charges, if the paypal user insists on charging and not funding out of cash balance (which paypal would STRONGLY prefer eveyone do, since they make much higher margin and don't have to eat discount charges), end up on Visa, M/C, or Discover, where the discount rates are less, AND NOT END UP on AMEX.

So...I now have to wonder if paypal is being shrewdly and coyly passive about AMEX's screwed up policy of limiting paypal charges and therefore is dumb like a fox by discreetly encouraging AMEX to continue this insanely low rolling 30-day limit of $2500 ???

Just wondering out loud.

Something doesn't jive in Denmark that senior paypal management can't get these AMEX's credit card and charge card products on-board like they have managed to get Visa, M/C, and Discover to do so. After all...paypal is a multi-billion operation these days. Gotta assume $500,000,000 of those billions in annual payments surely would naturally flow to AMEX if AMEX would rid this artificially-low limit.


ONE POSSIBLE SOLUTION: if paypal were serious about getting AMEX's attention....then they should LOCK OUT ALL AMEX CHARGES at paypal for some pre-announced period, and only allow Visa, M/C, and Discover be authorized credit card paypal partners... to thereby force AMEX to stew a bit over being openly discriminated against, just like they are currently discriminating against paypal to the detriment of long-standing AMEX and paypal customers. I think it would only take a couple of weeks before AMEX would fire the VP that handles the paypal account, and then get this straightened out.

Can anyone else speculate as to how and why paypal can't seem to generate the leverage that should be available to them...to force AMEX to back off this open discrimination against paypal. If *I* were the paypal CEO, I would be LIVID at AMEX openly discriminates against paypal customers, and, to my knowledge, does not enforce these artificial charge limits with any other merchant in the world (no eft merchant).

Paypal ought to be really fighting this issue as an affront to their very credibility, as this silly AMEX limit, indirectly, makes paypal look semi-incompetent and unable to be a mainstream merchant, but I sense a quiet acquiescence by paypal every darned time I speak with them on this issue.

Yes, these paypal CSRs blame AMEX as the sole problem, but they can never convince me that paypal senior management is aggressively trying to fix the problem. hhhmmmmmmm

[This message has been edited by ILUVCITIBANK (edited Nov 20, 2003).]