Amex CS has gotten a lot weaker in the past few years; it got moved overseas. Closing the actual physical Amex offices also was a big step down (I've been a me

Amex CS has gotten a lot weaker in the past few years; it got moved overseas. Closing the actual physical Amex offices also was a big step down (I've been a member since 97). I would not want to bet on Amex at this point -- losing Costco, competition from Chase, and now Citi pushing to expand their own cards. I'm surprised there hasn't been a lower-merchant-fees challenger now that everyone has a mobile phone; you could probably do something which presents at POSes as a credit card, handles a bunch of auth back through the customer's own mobile phone connection (but encrypted/authenticated), presenting a time of use credential which is matched by the POS while appearing as a regular credit card. Building something like that which costs the merchant <1%, and maybe which provides customers with a lot more purchasing/receipt info (for company purchasing cards).