AMEX not accepted or surcharge

[kyle]

Perhaps most Amex/JCB/Diners are international cards which have a higher merchant cost.

I now walk out of Australian stores which surcharge. You should too.
This practice of surcharges is simply bad business and shows a lack of respect to the customer.

I will walk out unless my points earn is greater than the cost of the surcharge.

With hotels though, can't really walk out...

 

[cove]

We never get surcharged in the US with our US Amex cards.

 

[marki]

We never get surcharged in the US with our US Amex cards.

Oh I have never noticed! but yes I agree, never noticed just the bloody extra AMEX fees for using your card overseas

 

[cove]

We use auto pay to clear our US credit cards off a US Bank account. The hardest bit is getting a great exchange rate when transferring funds from Australia.

 

[ChrisFlyer]

Funny one today too.... Cafe had one of those fancy CBA tablet card machines that displayed the Amex logo on the screen along with Visa/MC.... Tapped the Amex, "Card not supported". Confirmed with the staff that they don't take Amex. WTF is there an Amex logo displayed then??

I've noticed that before too at a cafe in Hobart - had the logo but AMEX didn't work. However my mechanic has the same 'Albert' terminal and does take AMEX: logo shows and paywave works with a PIN (am usually paying >$100), so maybe CBA just needs to hide the logo when there's no AMEX account linked. ANZ terminals do the same thing: AMEX only pops up in the logos if there's an account connected to it.

 

[Jurahn]

Staying at the Vibe Hotel Canberra Airport tonight - couldn't see anything on the website when I booked about there being a higher surcharge for Amex and asked when I was checking in whether it mattered which CC I used (meaning a difference in surcharges). The young lady at the reception desk said brightly "no, not at all", so I handed the card over. She types away and then just as she's about to put the card in the machine, she said "with Amex there's a 2.5% surcharge" - er, that's WHY I was asking if it mattered what CC I used!! I said I'd put it through on MasterCard instead - "that's fine, that's only 1.2%" she said. **sigh**. I'll have to be more specific with my question next time!

 

[whatmeworry]

Post Office wanted to surcharge my payment for payment of Rego. It was only $1.60 which works out to ~0.4% of the rego price. Probably should paid it but looks like no surcharge with visa/MC on vic roads website.

 

[albyd]

Just went out for dinner 2% surcharge for all cards -including eftpos (thought was meant to be 10c flat per transaction - not that I would've paid by eftpos.
Glad my Amex has 3ppd on dining - helps to swallow the surcharge a little more easily.

 

[coriander]

OTOH, good news on one front: I went to my Exetel accounts to move their DDs as I'm about to kill off my JQ MCard. I was planning to move them to an ANZ Visa card when I saw this a the top of their payments section:

"Important news: In February 2016, the Federal Government passed into law, excessive payment surcharges.
<snip>
As a result, the following surcharges will apply to all Exetel accounts as of the 1st of September 2016:

• Residential and Small the Medium Business (SMB) Customers using American Express:
  Reduced from 2.97% to 1.0% (including GST) of the total of the charge.

Moved five accounts over to pay by ANZ FF Amex Black.

 

[Moopere]

OTOH, good news on one front: I went to my Exetel accounts to move their DDs as I'm about to kill off my JQ MCard. I was planning to move them to an ANZ Visa card when I saw this a the top of their payments section:

"Important news: In February 2016, the Federal Government passed into law, excessive payment surcharges.
<snip>
As a result, the following surcharges will apply to all Exetel accounts as of the 1st of September 2016:

• Residential and Small the Medium Business (SMB) Customers using American Express:
  Reduced from 2.97% to 1.0% (including GST) of the total of the charge.

Moved five accounts over to pay by ANZ FF Amex Black.

Big tick to them - good to see a win now and then.

Honestly though, I don't expect to see much if any change from most suppliers due to the law change. The threat of serious legal ramifications will probably have the big guys at least look at their policies and possibly adjust them, but for most medium and small operators, I think the scope is still there to charge almost anything - for one, the government isn't likely to start auditing them en masse, and secondly, unless one charges just staggeringly high fees you could explain away costs in an SMB in almost anyway you like, not only the cost of the actual merchant account but also the activities by staff and whatnot to service that account and even the cost of you,the boss, overseeing the whole thing at $2000 an hour (big smile, I'm being silly, but you get the idea ... you can just make it up).

I was at a mid range restaurant a few days ago, they wanted 2.75% for Amex + surcharge for a public holiday (!!!????) all on top of what was, to be perfectly honest, a pretty overpriced menu. The food was good, it really was, but for goodness sakes, the dipping back into the wallet just never ends with some of these places.

I won't be back, despite the good food.

Its all perception of course and I keep harping on about it I know. I wouldn't have noticed another 2$/plate for the fish as it was already ridiculously highly priced, yet I certainly did notice, and its peeved me, that these extra CC/PH surcharges appeared at the end of the meal.

 

[Mr_Orange]

Bank holiday surcharges get up my nose, but I've learned to accept them. A weekend surcharge, on the other hand, was a new one for me. Max Brenner, no less, charges 10% just beacuse it is a weekend. That infuriated me since the weekend trade is surely the basis of their business model!

 

[N860CR]

I went to my local Italian place last public holiday (whenever that was). It was pretty quiet and it was just two of us. We had a salad and 2 pizzas.

They ended up surcharging 3% for Amex, 10% for the public holiday and $5 for us to share a bottle of wine.

The nickel and diming at payment really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

 

[Buzzard]

I went to my local Italian place last public holiday (whenever that was). It was pretty quiet and it was just two of us. We had a salad and 2 pizzas.

They ended up surcharging 3% for Amex, 10% for the public holiday and $5 for us to share a bottle of wine.

The nickel and diming at payment really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Did you leave a tip?

 

[trippin_the_rift]

I went to my local Italian place last public holiday (whenever that was). It was pretty quiet and it was just two of us. We had a salad and 2 pizzas.

They ended up surcharging 3% for Amex, 10% for the public holiday and $5 for us to share a bottle of wine.

The nickel and diming at payment really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Maybe it explains why they were quiet...

 

[N860CR]

Did you leave a tip?

HA! Nope, they missed out

 

[JohnPhelan]

Staying at the Vibe Hotel Canberra Airport tonight - couldn't see anything on the website when I booked about there being a higher surcharge for Amex and asked when I was checking in whether it mattered which CC I used (meaning a difference in surcharges). The young lady at the reception desk said brightly "no, not at all", so I handed the card over. She types away and then just as she's about to put the card in the machine, she said "with Amex there's a 2.5% surcharge" - er, that's WHY I was asking if it mattered what CC I used!! I said I'd put it through on MasterCard instead - "that's fine, that's only 1.2%" she said. **sigh**. I'll have to be more specific with my question next time!

She meant that it didn't matter to her which card you used!!

 

[Freq Flier 2013]

All the surcharges just reinforce the fact that penalty rates on weekends and public holidays are a big cost to business and should be reviewed.

 

[whatmeworry]

All the surcharges just reinforce the fact that penalty rates on weekends and public holidays are a big cost to business and should be reviewed.

No, just reinforces some businesses haven't got their business plan worked out. We are not a 24/7 economy and the people of Australia shouldn't work without fair compensation.

 

[greenfrog86]

Having recently got the ANZ AMEX with Apple Pay, what I have noticed is that there are quite a few terminals which do not support AMEX on contactless (VISA/MC only) but do for chip or swipe - no difference whether using the card or apple pay for the contactless - VISA contactless works fine on the same terminal. The biggest culprit I've seen is BP, with whatever terminal/bank they are using.

It's often the nab terminals that haven't been updated to accept Amex through contactless. It drives me mad!

 

[kyle]

It's often the nab terminals that haven't been updated to accept Amex through contactless. It drives me mad!

And those Verifone terminals too!