AMEX not accepted or surcharge

[docjames]

I'm not very familiar with the details of Myki,

For the sanitised version: myki - it's your key

For what people really think: Yes, it is a tough job but someone has to sell it

 

[ChrisFlyer]

For the sanitised version: myki - it's your key

For what people really think: Yes, it is a tough job but someone has to sell it

Just saw this on one of the pages - "Soon myki will be available from over 700 retailers in Melbourne, including all 7-Eleven stores."

So there's your Amex acceptance

But they were saying the same thing about Go Card in Queensland, and now most people use it and there are rarely problems... just give it time

 

[serenityc]

I have not read all the threads, but I bank with ANZ. Late last year, they sent me an AMEX card, which I now use whenever possible. The reason being that the VISA which I still have, has had its reward points lowered substantially.
Obviously AMEX must be expanding, on the basis of offering some rewad to ANZ to get their business? Whats the real deal here I wonder?

 

[ChrisFlyer]

I have not read all the threads, but I bank with ANZ. Late last year, they sent me an AMEX card, which I now use whenever possible. The reason being that the VISA which I still have, has had its reward points lowered substantially.
Obviously AMEX must be expanding, on the basis of offering some rewad to ANZ to get their business? Whats the real deal here I wonder?

The deal is that businesses pay higher rates to process American Express transactions when compared with Visa & MasterCard. The rates for all transactions are split between the card issuer (of the customer's card), the acquirer (the bank who operates the store's merchant account), and the network (Visa/MC/Amex/Diners/JCB).

So if a merchant was paying 0.72% for Visa/MasterCard, the amount earned from this % would be split between the issuer, acquirer and network. If, say the issuer received a 45% fee share (ie. 0.324% of the overall transaction value), the acquirer a 54% fee share (ie. 0.3888% overall), and the network received the remaining 1% fee share (0.0072% overall), then on a $100 transaction, the bank would receive 32.4 cents for Visa/MasterCard.

For most acquirers, Amex transaction charges are billed directly by Amex, and therefore the acquirer would only receive their normal fixed transaction fee (~10-30c). So for issuer purposes, here's the calculation for the same transaction amount on American Express:

Sample merchant fee: 1.96%
Issuer fee share: 45% of fee / 0.882% of total txn talue
Acquirer fee share: 0%
Network fee share: 55% / 1.078% of total txn value

Total issuer fee received: 88.2 cents (almost 3x what would have been received from Visa/MasterCard)

So if an issuer processes, say, $2b worth of (non-disputed and non-fraudulent) credit card transactions annually, then using these figures, the bank would have $6.48m in gross card commission revenue if the customer was using Visa/MasterCard. If however, the same amount was processed using Amex, the gross card comm. rev. would be $17.64m, a difference of $11.16 million annually...

Therefore they try to give as many incentives to their customers to use Amex over Visa/MC where available, as the customer becomes more profitable to them.

Long story short, Amex transactions make the bank more money, explained in detail above

PS: The percentages used above are an example - exact %s would most likely vary between the different issuers and acquirers, and may not be close to what was used in the example. (However, the same percentage was used for both card calculations, so any change here would be proportional to both)

This also doesn't take other income such as increased annual fees and foreign currency conversion revenue into account - both of which are also in favour Amex for bank income.

 

[ChrisFlyer]

Well I've received 5 different emails from Amex today regarding card acceptance leads submitted *ages* ago. Unfortunately, the reply to all was "Unfortunately at this time, they have currently declined to offer this service to their customers."

Lame... at least get them to accept with a surcharge rather than not at all!

 

[lovestotravel]

Well I've received 5 different emails from Amex today regarding card acceptance leads submitted *ages* ago. Unfortunately, the reply to all was "Unfortunately at this time, they have currently declined to offer this service to their customers."

Lame... at least get them to accept with a surcharge rather than not at all!

Yep I tend to receive them about 9 months later, and in batches of around 4-5 emails.

I wonder if they actually try to talk to these "leads" or just send them back to us with no response.

I have submitted well over 100 leads in the past 15 months, it all started with the Amex boni points promotion for every transaction......

Out of the 100++ leads.

62 received a "we are currently in discussion with..."
4 "we are happy to tell you that ****** has decided to accept the card"
2 "we are happy to inform you that **** will now warmly welcome the card with no surcharge"
20 "Unfortunately at this time they have currently declined to offer this service"

Remainder no reply but again they can take up to 9 months to come though.

I have actually reported myself for surcharging..... I want a cheaper merchant fee from Amex. I do accept it from customers with no surcharge, but I would still like a lower rate. No call or letter from Amex yet and it's been about 10 weeks....

Interesting...

I have also personally emailed the fruit shop, the gift shop, one of the coffee shops and asked them as a customer, who would become a regular, why they will not accept Amex.

Only received a reply from one, and they said I am sure you are able to pay via Cash, EFTPOS or another credit card.

So I asked if I could pay via Diners and never received a response.

So I wish that fruit shop all the luck in the world next to Woolworths, and they are doing very poorly from all accounts!

 

[ChrisFlyer]

So I wish that fruit shop all the luck in the world next to Woolworths, and they are doing very poorly from all accounts!

I don't understand why a business such as this one wouldn't want to be as competitive as possible.

There's a newsagent in the shopping centre right across from the local Coles Hypermarket which refuses to accept Amex or Diners, and has a $5 minimum. I always used to buy greeting cards, gift bags/wraps etc there, but got fed up one day and just started buying them from Coles on Amex for the same price...

I'm happy to support a small business (and prefer to do this when the prices are the same), but they have to be willing to accept my preferred method of payment - otherwise, I now just go elsewhere. I believe that in modern business, the choice shouldn't be whether or not to accept Amex and Diners, but simply whether or not to apply a surcharge to these cards... at least then the customer still has the option of which card to use, and business customers don't have to take extra time claiming expenses back from the company when their Corporate Amex/Diners wasn't accepted.

 

[lovestotravel]

I don't understand why a business such as this one wouldn't want to be as competitive as possible.

1. They can't be bothered dealing with the higher merchant fee
2. They can't be bothered worrying if their staff will charge the merchant fee 3. They have the mindset that they won't miss out on customers by not accepting the card.
4. They assume all customers will simply pay via another means

As I said I have reported them via Amex, emailed them and even spoke to the owner a few months back.

He simply wasn't interested in accepting the card as he claimed it wouldn't affect business.

I said I won't shop here until you accept Amex, he said "you are the only person I know that would do that". While that is nearly correct, I am sure there are a few others who avoid non-Amex accept merchants.

I do laugh at the handwritten signs on the front of the shop saying "Support a local family run business" Clearly having a dig at Woolworths.

At least both local butchers happily accept Amex and they have very nice meat usually cheaper than Woolies and Coles.

With the decline on the 1st of Feb of 0.5 Qantas FF points per $1 spent on my Visa, I am to eliminate all Visa transactions totally.

The only ones that I won't be able to eliminate are some of my overseas suppliers who while being based in the USA won't accept Amex. These ones really frustrate me as they are BIG purchases :evil:

 

[auriga]

Definitely in the extreme minority!:mrgreen:

 

[ChrisFlyer]

Well I've just made use of the "globaleshop" benefit for CBA Amex cards, as without it, my Amex wouldn't have been accepted

I was buying lifetime map updates for my Garmin GPS (from their website), and discovered that when you enter an Australian billing address, the options for Amex & Discover (Diners) disappear. However, if you select the US as your country, and use the US address that you are assigned in globaleshop/comgateway, you can use Australian Amex, with a choice of $AUD or $USD... (Why they wouldn't enable this for users with an Australian address is beyond me, particularly when they can process Amex in $AUD)

$USD worked out to be cheaper anyway, so I went with that... Just thought that this may be of benefit if anyone has a Garmin device!

 

[coyote25]

I'm currently in NZ and I have to say I have been surprised at how many merchants accept AMEX. Out of 16 purchases only 2 said no, one being car rental which was a big purchase

Having the card forced on me by ANZ and the Visa cut in half means I now look for the AMEX acceptance whenever possible.

Another thing to get used to in NZ is no surcharge, at least none that I have experienced. The good old days in Australia which we gave up for competition that never really came.

 

[Oneworldplus2]

I'm a little bit slow to get on the band wagon, so to speak, but can someone please explain to me why AMEX has become so big in recent times, and why VISA's earning (around 0.5 points per $1 spent) has been chopped in half?
Quick question, I'm ditching my current CC and was looking at getting one which earns QFF Points. 5k is probably the max I'll put on the card in any given month. Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.

 

[ChrisFlyer]

I'm a little bit slow to get on the band wagon, so to speak, but can someone please explain to me why AMEX has become so big in recent times, and why VISA's earning (around 0.5 points per $1 spent) has been chopped in half?
Quick question, I'm ditching my current CC and was looking at getting one which earns QFF Points. 5k is probably the max I'll put on the card in any given month. Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.

Check out my post on the previous page - http://www.frequentflyer.com.au/com...accepted-or-surcharge-6391-83.html#post287808

It shows why banks prefer Amex now instead of Visa/MC.

On an unrelated note, I was quite (happily) shocked to see that I had been awarded QFF points on the fraudulent transactions made on my Amex (the transactions were reversed by them manually as "FRAUD REFUND EVENT" weeks before the end of the statement period... So it looks like when they do it this way as a manual entry, no points are lost - only when the actual merchant performs the refund.

 

[docjames]

one being car rental which was a big purchase

.

Which one? I always use amex for car hire.

 

[simongr]

The NRMA have dropped Amex and Diners...

 

[zzyss]

The NRMA have dropped Amex and Diners...

Yeah, noticed that just before Christmas. Suggestions were to move to GIO... waiting for my current policies to expire, since I only just renewed them.

 

[simongr]

I shall be cancelling my NRMA policy as soon as I can and citing this as a cause.

 

[mvjs]

I shall be cancelling my NRMA policy as soon as I can and citing this as a cause.

My understanding is that if your NRMA policy is configured to direct debit the AMEX card, this will remain until you need to change the card on their system when AMEX will no longer be an option.

 

[JohnK]

The NRMA have dropped Amex and Diners...

Very disappointing. That was a big loss for Amex and they are not happy. I can imagine they would be trying everything possible to get them back.

 

[Oneworldplus2]

I spoke to a few people who have CC cards which are mostly dual AMEX + VISA/MC...(as in, 2 cards, 1 account).
They said that they main problem carrying around an AMEX was that it rarely got use. If you have the opportunity to use it, there is usually a surcharge, eg, petrol station, or that alot of people just don't accept them because of the high merchant fees.
Now, before l go and get myself a CC which has 2 cards in essence (1 AMEX and 1 which is either a VISA or MC), what are most peoples opinions on this? Just putting it out there and l'm curious for the replies.
Thanks in advance.