Just wrapped up a 3 week trip around Australia. What is up with merchants everywhere tacking on a 2-3% fee for using an AMEX? Even hotels (pretty tacky in my opinion)! I've traveled to many, many countries (over 80) but never seen this practiced so widely.

I wrote to Amex Australia and of course they lied and said that "the vast majority of our merchants do not apply any surcharge".

Yeah, right Amex.

I replied with the list of merchants on the street I was staying in Sydney...each and every one applied a surcharge- restaurants, hotels, bars, stores...