4 ms·
Just don't travel to Europe, you will struggle with amex here. Almost unknown at any selling point and as per what others post for good reasons.
by jajko 2y ago
Just don't travel to Europe, you will struggle with amex here. Almost unknown at any selling point and as per what others post for good reasons.
- kmlx 2y agonot so in the UK, especially London. strong presence. they’re accepted even at local shops where they dropped their fees in order to encourage adoption.
- steveBK123 2y agoI keep a backup Visa card and actually 99% of the time Amex and some petty cash is still fine in my Western EU travels.
- PopAlongKid 2y agoIronic, in that American Express (AMEX) traveler's cheques used to be (before credit cards were common) a nearly universal way for American tourists to carry cash when traveling anywhere in Europe, you could always exchange them for the local currency, and they would be replaced if lost/stolen.
- alephnerd 2y agoI've travel in Europe a bunch (CEE, Scandinavia, and UK) for work and pleasure and Amex has always worked for me. I can only think of a handful of times where I had to revert to my Visa instead.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> don't travel to Europe, you will struggle with amex here Depends on the country. Worked fine in Portugal, Italy, Norway and Britain. Less so in France and Germany—they have influential financial centres.
- wcfields 2y agoMy experience in the EU with Amex: Good coverage in London, UK but not as much as the US only fancy restaurants in France/Spain some small biz places in Venice, Italy but probably only because of the Venice Biennale was sponsored by Amex and their sales people did a push.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoTL; DR If there is a large local banking lobby, Amex won’t work.
- fignews 2y agoLive in Germany, use Amex works at 60% of the time. Visa 80% of the time. Many businesses are cash only (less after Covid)
- warkdarrior 2y agoYou use credit cards 140% of the time??
- santoshalper 2y agoThe dude LOVES credit. Sometimes he pays for something twice just to flex.
- maccard 2y agoIn the Uk and Ireland I have a >95% success rate with it. I was in Germany recently and had a 0% success rate. Europe is a big place.
- Macha 2y agoAre you trying to use it in tourist areas or not? It makes a big difference. My employer a few years ago was bought by a US company who switched the corporate cards from Visa to Amex, and after that, every business trip to Ireland from the US offices had someone needing to claim reimbursement for paying without the company approved card as the Amex got rejected at least once on each trip. We used to joke that it was an attempt to reduce the cost of expenses by annoying people with the paperwork when the Amex was inevitably declined.
- maccard 2y agoIn Ireland/UK nope, in Germany yes!
- bigger_cheese 2y agoI live in Australia when I first signed up for a credit card through my bank they issued me with both a Mastercard and an American Express card linked to the same credit account. It seemed to me they really wanted to push Amex as they offered higher reward points etc for using it, the problem was almost nowhere accepted Amex whilst Mastercard "just worked" everywhere. Eventually my bank cancelled the Amex card and they no longer offer American Express. I never really noticed because I hadn't used it for years at that point.