Quote:
Originally Posted by moz
This, incidentally, is why people like me carry AmEx cards. AmEx have the highest transaction fees of any readily available card so they're an excellent way to punish retailers who have an effective monopoly. Since I don't actually have that problem ery often I don't bother, but when I was regularly forced to buy overpriced food and fuel from local monopolists, I used one for exactly this reason.
|
That's also why:
a) It's comparatively rare to find shops in Europe who accept AmEx. MasterCard and Visa are pretty much universal; AmEx is only widely accepted by hotels and the fancier restaurants. I'm a credit-card merchant myself and I don't accept AmEx - it's too expensive.
b) Most European retailers have a minimum transaction limit below which they won't accept credit cards - generally around the £5 / €10 mark.