I don't see anything in the articles that implies a merchant would be permitted to refuse to accept a given type of Visa or MC (i.e., rewards card)... just that they could offer discounts for using a standard card for example, rather than a rewards card... or a discount for using Visa instead of Amex. Which granted, could eventually change the landscape a bit. I'm not worried about it right now though.

I noticed the article states that Visa at least, already permited mechants to offer a discount for cash or debit - yet I can't recall any time in the past 25 years that I encountered such a discount, except at a few gas stations during the $4+ per gal days. So if few stores bothered with setting up a simple cash vs. credit discount, would that many now go to the effort of establishing a cash vs. non-rewards card vs. rewards card discounting system?

I tried hunting down some statistics on what percentage of rewards vs. non-rewards cards are issued annually. I didn't find anything definitive, but several articles stating that rewards cards make up a "majority", though without citing sources. This page on creditcards.com does cite sources but provides no links to them http://www.creditcards.com/credit-ca...76.php#Rewards In any case, such cards are a big chunk of the industry. One would hope that a clearly successful setup of rewards cards won't be gutted anytime soon.