Originally Posted by
AllieKat
Visa and Mastercard's hands are tied. They've tried to stop this nonsense, but got sued by "consumer" groups (which are really controlled by merchants) for doing so. This isn't their plague. Amex and Discover are smaller networks, thus not seen to have undue influence on the market, they have more freedom to protect their cardholders.
I would also say AmEx and Discover have more end-to-end control of their networks. While there are third party issuers of American Express cards, Discover is the only issuer of its cards, right? Furthermore, while I don't have the numbers, I imagine that AmEx issues the vast majority of AmEx branded cards rather than a third party issuer. Visa and MC don't issue their own cards; they're simply the payment network. Also, depending on the fee structure, issuers can lose out with DCC since they don't get the additional profit if the card levies a currency exchange fee. Of course, in the US we've all moved to FTFs, so they'd get their cut anyway.