American Express : not welcome?

kennysarmy

kennysarmy

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I just signed up for an American Express card as it was offering 5% cashback for the next 3 months, in that time I hope to upgrade my canon 400d.

I've just noticed that London Camera Exchange for one only accept VISA and Mastercard.

Has anyone else had issues trying to use American Express Cards to purchase camera equipment online?
 
Many places will not take Amex as their charges are far too high. It's not a recent thing.
 
I have an AMEX and most places won't take it - Jacobs and Jessops will but then they are not the cheapest so getting 5% back on something that is 10% more expensive to begin with isn't ideal!
 
Amex has the highest service fees of all the common cards. They also are the slowest of handing over the money. Retailers like debit cards best as there is a set fee per transaction of around 10p. Visa and Mastercard have a small percentage fee. American express last.
 
Natwest will not do cash advances on amex cards either (slightly different to purchases) but amex are not as widely supported as mastercard/visa
 
Topcashback/quidco etc cashback sites list includes:
Jessops @ 6%
Jacoobs @ 2.5%
Warehouse Express @ 3%
Currys @ 4%
7 Day Shop @2%
Dixons @ 3%
PCW @ 5%
Whilst no help with the card situation and chosen retailer, every little helps.
 
Amex have recently dropped the annual charge to retailers so hopefully there may be some more take up. As for commission rates they've also come down quite a bit - I think I'm only being charged .4% more than visa/mastercard.
 
Our rates:

Mastercard: 1.28%
Visa Credit: 1.18%
Visa Delta: 25.5p
Maestro: 24.0p
'commercial cards': 1.78%
Amex: 3.8%

Whilst we accept Amex, when someone offers us the choice of cards, we go for Visa or Mastercard or a debit card.

I know someone who bought a Porsche 911 on their debit card. Dealer would have been pleased as they'd only get charged 25p on the £ 60,000 bill rather than £ 1000 for Visa or £ 2280 for using American Express (assuming he had that amount of credit!)
 
andrewc said:
Our rates:

Mastercard: 1.28%
Visa Credit: 1.18%
Visa Delta: 25.5p
Maestro: 24.0p
'commercial cards': 1.78%
Amex: 3.8%

Whilst we accept Amex, when someone offers us the choice of cards, we go for Visa or Mastercard or a debit card.

I know someone who bought a Porsche 911 on their debit card. Dealer would have been pleased as they'd only get charged 25p on the £ 60,000 bill rather than £ 1000 for Visa or £ 2280 for using American Express (assuming he had that amount of credit!)
Click to expand...

Most car dealers do take debit cards as instant funds and as you say only small fee, I bought my last car in full on debit card as dealer asked for this instead of cheque/Bank draft! Interestingly though I did use my Amex for the deposit on my wife's new car and they didn't mind (only £2k) but they wouldn't let me use it for the balance!!! The Amex issue is a pain, more and more places are stopping taking them (even though they appear to be reducing fees) I have an Amex Corporate card and a personal one with cashback but am finding it increasingly difficult to use the Amex for personal use (if Amazon stop using it then I might as well bin it as I generally try to buy all my goodies from Amazon to get my cashback ;) )
 
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