Competition with MasterCard, Discover, and Amex should hold them back from doing this, because at such punitive rates merchants would definitely stop accepting

Competition with MasterCard, Discover, and Amex should hold them back from doing this, because at such punitive rates merchants would definitely stop accepting them. I believe Amex is only able to get away with its highest-in-the-industry rates because of the association of Amex cards with business expense accounts and high income earners. This is changing now (https://www.ft.com/content/715d785e-23fc-11e8-ae48-60d3531b7d11 https://www.ft.com/content/715d785e-23fc-11e8-ae48-60d3531b7...) especially after years of competition from banks like Chase, who have been working on creating what is essentially a structural clone of American Express’ network (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-jpmorganchase-creditcards-insight/jpmorgan-uses-its-might-to-cut-costs-in-credit-card-market-idUSKCN0R80B620150908 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-jpmorganchase-creditcards...).