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Comment by petercammeraat | Hacker News Reader

Partnership with American Express could lead to Apple Card being available in more countries.

American Express is often not accepted even in countries where it's supposed to be present (e.g. quite a few shops in Sweden don't accept AmEx).

Visa and MasterCard are much more universally accepted.

Real talk, shops will not continue to reject AmEx when they realize Amex is bringing the size and scope of the APPLE consumer market

That consumer market is already available to them via Apple Pay, and people paying with their Visas and MasterCards.

Apple Card is non-existent outside the US.

How many Amex holders don't have a second card? I've never heard of anybody getting to the checkout line, then saying oh drat, they only take visa, and walking out.

OTOH I typically only have 2-3 non-Amex charges a month. Costco is the main one (used to be Amex only too).

I'm sure lots of people use their Amex preferentially, but I've never seen anyone put their hand on a door handle, then see that only visa/mc stickers are in the window, and walk away.

I have. When someone wanted to expense something. Or when they didn’t want to bother with the Chase card declining because it forgot they were still overseas or whatnot.

For 16 or so years Costco required you to have an AmexEx card if you weren't paying with cash or debit, now they only take Visa. This was apparently something lots of newish members weren't aware of so it wasn't too uncommon to be in line and have someone say they didn't have the right card to pay. You'd then have to wait for the checkout person to give them the Costco Amex card spiel.

Maybe. I think Amex is still the leading corporate card — hard to find a less price sensitive bunch than people spending someone else’s money. That was part of why Amex was accepted in many places: high potential for big orders.

If my Apple Card switched to Amex I might switch the default tap to pay card to something else. Right now it’s very convenient for everywhere that takes tap-to-pay, but… who wants to deal with it sometimes not working?

It’s basically zero effort to use a different card.

I think GP's point was that with AMEX not being accepted everywhere, it would no longer be a transparent action to pay with tap. Now they would have to either deal with the rejection and change to a non-default card, or they would need to prepare in advance by looking around for what kinds of cards are accepted. Neither of these things are a big deal, but it's friction, and consumers don't like friction.

Yeah I mean if it happens once or twice I’m gonna switch to a different default card. The .5% extra cash back isn’t that much, especially for something that’s all about convenience.

Mostly the Apple Card was a novelty for me: 100% of my usages is via Apple Pay.

Apple devices aren't nearly as universal outside of the US (except Japan where they're even more universal) and there are already payment options for non-US Apple users. I think I have four different payment cards in my Wallet.

If you want the Apple consumer market, you support Apple Pay and then the cards you support don't matter.

Make me paw my credit card out of my wallet like an animal, be it an AMEX or Apple Car, and I find somewhere else to shop.

In my country they will, just because of the far higher merchant fees Amex charges compared to Visa and Mastercard.

Do you have an AMEX? It's accepted basically nowhere outside of the US, actually very annoying

Anecdotally, I can use it in 75% of shops I frequent.

Total nonsense. I was traveling for 3-4 months last year, and my AMEX was accepted almost everywhere in Spain, Portugal, Germany, etc.

In Germany being able to pay with a card is not a standard. And from that subgroup of places accepting cards, a big number of them will accept only Giro (German card standard). Visa/MC is far from being universally accepted and AMEX is even rarer.

That changes of course, but mostly in big cities' centers (Covid accelerated things in Berlin). I hope businesses catch up with the new wave of payment terminals like iZettle and SumUp - they support all these different cards without a problem

Where I'm from AMEX is basically used for free stuff and cancelled afterwards. And for curiosity like reservations for me and my fisherman's friends.

In the last six months, I have used my AmEx in Italy, Canada, and The Bahamas.

Where are you having trouble with AmEx?

India, Malaysia, France, Switzerland and Germany. Go to small towns in most of Europe and you'll find a significant number of vendors not accepting Amex.

I know it is not accepted in many smaller places. I was reading maybe too literally the nonsense assertion, "accepted basically nowhere outside of the US."

Back when you needed to swipe that magnetic stripe the Amex one was different and required a special reader that almost no one in europe had. Except maybe tourist traps.

Not sure how it works now if Amex has discovered chips and contactless. The payment processors probably still need a separate path for Amex and I haven't seen that logo in a lot of places that do display visa and mc. So maybe it's still only available in tourist traps.

My current AmEx has had chip and contactless for three years or more now. But I wouldn’t want anyone to have to update their priors.

UK experience (some years back) of a platinum card was that the few places who accepted it preferred Visa or Mastercard. Minimal utility, basically.

I gotta say MasterCard is pretty trash too. I was traveling in Japan and effectively unable to use my Apple Card anywhere because they only accepted VISA nearly everywhere.

Funny enough, loading money from my bank account into my Apple Cash which is VISA allowed me to use Apple Pay, avoid ATM fees, foreign transaction fees, and was just more pleasant than using my bank card.

I was also recently in Japan (about 3 months ago), I never took out my credit card. I paid with my Apple Card (Mastercard) via Apple Pay.

I was there around the same time. I don't remember a single convenience store accepting Mastercard. And anywhere outside Tokyo or a major city you were unlikely to even see the logo. Cash only was certainly more rare than it was a decade ago.

Shrewd shopkeepers know the AMEX deal – higher transaction fees, potential chargebacks, etc. Even when they do accept it, I feel bad giving my AMEX to a small business, especially when I'm abroad. Accepting AMEX is common at a high-end restaurant or hotel around the world, but good luck once you're off the beaten track...

And ironically, less available in America.

I thought it's the opposite: MasterCard has much wider global coverage compared to American Express.

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