>But then the merchants lose out on the business of customers who want to pay with their Amex, often to get points for rewards.
who actually does this? I'd imagine most amex users probably have a mastercard/visa anyways, and it's not like they're going to switch merchants to save an extra 1-2% on their purchase, presumably when the merchant they chose already have the lowest prices to begin with.
I charge about $120k/year on my Amex charge card. I use my Chase Visa when a merchant doesn’t take Amex (rare), but I’d rather use my Amex whenever possible.
To not maximize credit card rewards means to subsidize others who do. To fix the problem, you have to regulate interchange fees down so that rewards aren’t sustainable and are no longer offered. The problem isn’t American Express, it’s lax financial regulation.
Personally, I fully support the cramdown of interchange fees and the resulting impact on financial institutions.
Well, now that I keep my driver's licence and one credit card in my phone case, and have to make a point of carrying another card, any but a favorite shop loses out to someone who takes amex.
was it for convenience reasons (didn't want to deal with 2 credit cards)? because from a purely rational point of view, using debt/cash when a place doesn't take amex is always worse than using a no yearly fee visa with some amount of cashback.
I almost never ran into a merchant that didn't accept Amex, so I didn't have any particular reason to go to the trouble of getting another card. In fact, I more frequently ran into places that didn't take credit cards at all.
who actually does this? I'd imagine most amex users probably have a mastercard/visa anyways, and it's not like they're going to switch merchants to save an extra 1-2% on their purchase, presumably when the merchant they chose already have the lowest prices to begin with.