<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Craig:
There is a difference between credit cards and charge cards. Visa and MasterCard are credit cards. Diners and American Express (until recently) offerred only charge cards.
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Both types (charge and credit) exist for Visa and MasterCard.
Diners Club credit cards are offered together with charge cards in France since 1990 or so.
Amex credit cards (Optima cards) exist since the 80s .