Costco cuts ties with AmEx

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Brian Lutz
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Costco cuts ties with AmEx

Post by Brian Lutz »

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2 ... mped-again

Citing high fees, Costco is not only discontinuing the American Express Costco cards, but will stop accepting AmEx in the warehouses altogether. It sounds like they will be switching to a Citi Visa for their member credit cards.
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Re: Costco cuts ties with AmEx

Post by storewanderer »

I think many people carried AmEx Cards only because of the Costco connection. Many people, especially out west, have Visa Cards already. It will be interesting to see the percent of non-Costco Visa Cards vs. the percentage of Costco-Visa cards being used in these stores once this switch takes place.

Also I thought they went with MasterCard in Canada. Maybe I am wrong. I am surprised they are not going with a common card network...

Well, In N Out Burger is now accepting AmEx. I suppose that will make up for one fry worth of the revenue AmEx will lose from the Costco switch.
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Re: Costco cuts ties with AmEx

Post by Super S »

AMEX is not accepted at many businesses that accept Visa and Mastercard due to excessive fees. I never quite understood the point of having that card, I have never had one myself simply because too many retailers do not take it. I prefer a card which is more widely accepted as I only carry one card.
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Re: Costco cuts ties with AmEx

Post by BillyGr »

Something to do with the fact that AmEx (at least the original ones) had to be paid off each month (they didn't allow you to carry a balance over like a Visa or MasterCard would). So some people preferred that, knowing they wouldn't charge too much that they couldn't afford to pay.

Also a reason that some companies liked them for corporate cards, as employees wouldn't be tempted to charge stuff beyond what they were supposed to, knowing that the company wouldn't pay it and they wouldn't have the option of spreading payment out.

This also probably explains the higher fees, as they have to make money somehow, and since they weren't getting interest fees from balances being carried the only way to make that up was a bigger fee to the retailer or annual fees to the cardholder, which would be more difficult if other cards didn't have them.
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Re: Costco cuts ties with AmEx

Post by arizonaguy »

Sam's Club now accepts AmEx cards as of the last week or so. The only major credit card that Sam's Club doesn't accept now is Visa.
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