Originally Posted by
BerksFlyer
I see this kind of comment a lot and it always makes me wonder where other people are shopping. I’d say 90% of my credit card spend is done with AMEX and the remaining 10% is with a Mastercard in the few places which don’t take Amex.
Shopping, fuel, lunch, coffees, house and car insurance all done on Amex. I find that the only places which don’t take Amex are the kind of places I’m spending small sums.
I somewhat agree with this. I'm fairly sure I had Amex refused for insurance when I was working through the £10k for the BAPP voucher, though. In the end I got bored, ate up the fees, and used Bluechain or one of its predecessors to get it over with and the card put away.
The majority of small retailers here (N England) do *not* take Amex. The map of small businesses eligible for the current small business promotion via Amex is laughable locally.
I simply don’t agree with your comment that acceptance is ‘not great’. It’s not 100% but I’d say acceptance is good, but not great like Visa and MC.
The problem with this is that it's hassle, having to think each time I pay not just "is this business card or personal?" and "is this in sterling on barclays, forex on Wise or curve?" and "do I need s75 here?" but also "should I try Amex?".
The Barclays card (+ Curve) works EVERYWHERE. Wielding the Amex, even with Apple Pay, then having the transaction fail and the card machine have to be reset for another go, gets boring very quickly. A lot of shop staff *don't know* when asked whether they take Amex, which also causes delay.
Anyway, if Amex works for you, great - BAPP is the way forward; same cashback as Barclays and also the nice voucher every year. But I don't suggest it for the reasons above.