Thread: Where is American Express accepted?

What is American Express acceptance really like? Where is American Express accepted and where is it not accepted? Is American Express accepted everywhere in the United States? How about in Europe and worldwide?

I've found it is not accepted only a few places. My wife's dentist does not take it. But for the most part it is very widely accepted. In teh US, many schools and government agencies do not take Visa. So overall I would say that acceptance of AMEX and Visa are fairly similar.

Surprisingly, one jeweler I went to accepted all cards except Amex (you would think it'd be the other way, right? At least, that's what I thought). Besides charging higher fees, they also hold onto the money owed for much longer than the other companies, and in the jewelry business, that's a lot of dough to have to wait on.

I wouldn't say Amex and Visa have equivalent acceptance rates, it's pretty clear that Visa is accepted at more places, but most of the places that take Visa and not Amex are fairly small transactions for places I don't go to daily anyway (i.e., nice non-chain restaurants, places that don't even accept cash, etc.). Quick search on Wikipedia indicates that Amex handles 25% of all credit card transactions versus 40% for Visa (in America). But even still, Amex is widely accept, so there's plenty of opportunity to use it.

I'm not sure about abroad, but I know that in China, Discover actually pulled a coup and is the most accepted card there (over Visa and Amex that is) because they signed a deal to actually be on the network of one of the Chinese banks over there, but there are not too many other places in the world where Discover is accepted.

The only places I've seen not take it are my dentist (good thing insurance covered 100%) and it seems small sub shops, such as "Town House of Pizza" are Visa/MC only. Other than that I haven't been anywhere whee I've been told they don't accept American Express.

Murphy gas stations won't take it. I guess b/c it's "discount gas". My gym only takes VISA/MC too. But those are the only two places I've encountered.
Internationally, AMEX is well recognized and widely accepted.

Where is American Express accepted? Um like basically everywhere!

The Asian dry cleaners I go to doesn't take it tho

Originally Posted by Mogul of Pineapples

I remember there were a few months that Trader Joes stopped accepting American Express. I asked TJ's why and supposedly because there were a lot of charge backs happening and Amex was usually siding with the cardholder as expected.

That was way back in '06 or '07 and TJ's resumed American Express acceptance shortly thereafter so that issue must have been worked out between them.

If a business is smart they would accepted all cards - Amex, Discover, Visa and Mastercard. It's not worth losing 100% of a sale for an extra 1% in fees.

97% of something is better than 100% of nothing. Some people just don't get that concept.

There have been occasions where I have made the conscious decision to avoid a business because a particular credit card was not accepted. I avoided a Chinese restaurant recently since I would not benefit from Discover's 5% restaurant rebate, being that that particular restaurant did not accept Discover.

Sam's Club doesn't take AMEX or Visa...They only accept Discover, MC, and Visa DEBIT