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> Mastercard and Visa are always accepted either one is accepted Not the case. Visa credit cards ($V) can be used at 44 million merchant locations in more tha

> Mastercard and Visa are always accepted either one is accepted Not the case. Visa credit cards ($V) can be used at 44 million merchant locations in more than 200 countries and territories. Mastercard credit cards ($MA) are accepted at 37 million merchant locations in more than 210 countries and territories. So they're different, which doesn't matter at all except if you're stuck somewhere! Odds are both are accepted, but it's worth checking a destination country or area within a country before traveling with just one or the other. It might surprise that even in popular countries, V/MA might not be the most widely accepted. It's only recently that CB didn't beat both in France, though for a while CB+V was more common on a door than CB+MA, but now a CB logo usually includes both V and MA. https://histoire.bnpparibas/en/the-carte-bleue-a-french-success-story/ https://histoire.bnpparibas/en/the-carte-bleue-a-french-succ... Also, this is a good synthesis of the duopoly* problem, perhaps less of an issue (aka lower rates) in EU likely thanks to the nationals like CB: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4536466-visa-and-mastercard-threats-to-duopoly https://seekingalpha.com/article/4536466-visa-and-mastercard... * About duopoly: Visa has less than a 50 percent share, MasterCard has less than 40 percent, Discover has 18 percent, and American Express has 15 percent. V and MA acting as if 90% share is most likely "conscious parallelism". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_collusion#Conscious_parallelism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_collusion#Conscious_para... See the duopoly example at the end of the article suggesting a multi-round (long term) Nash equilibrium for parallelism.

dylan604 3y ago
My one conclusion of international travel is don't expect credit cards to be accepted and just consider it a bonus if they are. As far as AmEx, might as well leave home without it.
- 19h 3y ago
  Not sure how long Amex is going to be the worse option when Visa and MC are raising their fees, though
  - dylan604 3y ago
    I don't know why people are surprised by this. All of these cards that offer rewards have to be paid for some how. The rewards system has always seemed like a loss leader type of situation to attract new customers. I guess it finally caught up to them
  - capableweb 3y ago
    This part: > As far as AmEx, might as well leave home without it. Is referring to how American Express is not accepted in lots of parts in the world barely at all. Doesn't matter what the fee is if you cannot use the card in the first place.
capableweb 3y ago
> * About duopoly: Visa has less than a 50 percent share, MasterCard has less than 40 percent, Discover has 18 percent, and American Express has 15 percent. V and MA acting as if 90% share is most likely "conscious parallelism". I think this differs wildly between countries. I know that Discover/American Express wouldn't have close to 30% of the market share in Europe, it's only some shops that do accept those, although it's becoming more popular. In the countries I've been to in South America, things have been more or less similar. Also, I think that link of yours (although I cannot read it fully) is about the percentage of transactions, rather than number of merchants that accept it. So it's basically more about the card holders than the merchants accepting one vs the other.

dylan604 3y ago

My one conclusion of international travel is don't expect credit cards to be accepted and just consider it a bonus if they are. As far as AmEx, might as well leave home without it.

19h 3y ago
Not sure how long Amex is going to be the worse option when Visa and MC are raising their fees, though
- dylan604 3y ago
  I don't know why people are surprised by this. All of these cards that offer rewards have to be paid for some how. The rewards system has always seemed like a loss leader type of situation to attract new customers. I guess it finally caught up to them
- capableweb 3y ago
  This part: > As far as AmEx, might as well leave home without it. Is referring to how American Express is not accepted in lots of parts in the world barely at all. Doesn't matter what the fee is if you cannot use the card in the first place.

capableweb 3y ago

> * About duopoly: Visa has less than a 50 percent share, MasterCard has less than 40 percent, Discover has 18 percent, and American Express has 15 percent. V and MA acting as if 90% share is most likely "conscious parallelism". I think this differs wildly between countries. I know that Discover/American Express wouldn't have close to 30% of the market share in Europe, it's only some shops that do accept those, although it's becoming more popular. In the countries I've been to in South America, things have been more or less similar. Also, I think that link of yours (although I cannot read it fully) is about the percentage of transactions, rather than number of merchants that accept it. So it's basically more about the card holders than the merchants accepting one vs the other.