andrewkeith5
Member
My amex rarely works anywhere on contactless and most retailers I use it at insist it go in the machine and then it works fine. Not sure why tho.
Amex contactless is only very slightly different to Visa/MasterCard. I believe it is a relatively simple security module that the reader needs to be setup with, but I can only assume that some retailers can't be bothered to get their readers setup properly ASDA use exactly the same model of card reader as Sainsbury's, but Sainsbury's bothered to set theirs up properly so Amex Contactless and Apple Pay are accepted just fine, but ASDA apparently can't be bothered...McDonalds finally got around to setting theirs up properly in the last few months.
Not true but is in the process of becoming true. Lloyds and MBNA issue Amex cards but MBNA ones have been withdrawn, and Lloyds is not open to new customers and existing cards will be withdrawn in the next 8 months.
Amex charges to the merchant can be lower than Visa and Mastercard charges, especially if the Visa or Mastercard is a corporate card, a "premium" card or issued outside the UK. For example, Tesco Bank used to issue the Tesco World Mastercard to high spenders but found they were paying through the nose when the card was used in Tesco.
Yeah. I have a World Mastercard as my backup card for retailers who don't appreciate the trade of American Express Cardmembers. I do find it amusing as they explain how "expensive" Amex is whilst happily processing my even-more-expensive-to-them MasterCard.
Sadly, thanks to the EU all co-branded American Express cards have been withdrawn because the EU decided they should be included in the stupidly low Interchange Fee cap, thus basically eliminating any profit for American Express, Lloyds, Barclaycard and MBNA for issuing them.
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I really don't buy that American Express cards are SO expensive to process compared to Visa/Mastercard. For companies with the sheer quantity of transaction volume as national retailers and travel companies, with some negotiation it can't be that difficult.
It's companies like WorldPay with their opaque fee structures, marketing and presumably hard sells and retailers that don't seem to bother taking the time to investigate options and alternatives that cause these things