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[News] - AMEX Expansion in India?

D₹V

TF Prestige
Amex cards have serious acceptance issue.

• It is accepted wherever Pine Lab, Paytm swipe machines are there. No issues there.

• Amex is in talk with SBI also to have tieup, so next month onwards, there won’t be any issues with SBI machines also (currently it depends on merchant willingness to Accept Amex cards on SBI machines).

• With HDFC and Axis machines, it depends on the merchant. Some HDFC and Axis Swipe machines, merchants have opted out for Amex cards as Amex charges higher fee to merchants. So, they don’t accept it.

• Another update is that, Amex is coming up with a dedicated drive next month to increase acceptance. This will include following initiatives

• Users will be able to provide details of retailers on Amex app, chat or email, wherever they feel issue with the Amex acceptance. Amex team will reach-out to the merchants to onboard them.

• They are in talk with major banks so that Amex would be accepted on their swipe machines by default.

• They are also considering reduction in merchant fee to drive acceptance.

• In last one year, they have issued large number of Amex cards and have doubled the list of serviceable cities. Higher number of card users naturally increases pressure on merchants to accept the card.


👆 The above is based on my detailed talk with Amex Customer Care executive on acceptance issue. They are promising that the acceptance will drastically improve in next 5-6 months. But let’s see🤞



• For now, 5 out of 10 offline merchants in metro cities like Mumbai are not accepting Amex credit cards, even in malls.

• Right now, best use of Amex card is Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Swiggy, Zomato etc. giftcards, Amex Reward Multiplier and Fuel ⛽️ at HPCL.

Post Credit: SpendWisely

Ps: above words are of the original author. My intent was to aware about this news only.
 
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I was eligible for platinum travel last year but I didn't take coz I was fedup with MRCC only. I wasn't able to complete the transaction.
Let's see when I make up my mind for Plat trav and GC.
 
Please leave Amex alone..
We need different kind of players in any industry to cater to the different kind of customers..
There is nothing wrong per say
Currently Amex in India is not offering anything different than other cc providers. Personal experience - their legendary customer service has gone to dogs. The other day spent 15 mins on hold on their platinum helpdesk just to reach to the person to cancel MRCC.
Traveldesk of Amex is a big fat joke. You can get better deals on skyscanner. Heck Amex traveldesk will suggest crappy flights just because they have tie up with some useless airlines (KLM / Lufthansa etc)
Plat charge card hotel partners have devalued their programs however Amex fees remains same with poor retention benefits.

I will any day prefer HSBC premier over the current mess called Amex (and I have been with Amex since 10+ years). Also HDFC have upped their transaction monitoring game. So keeping Amex for chargebacks or fraud protection will also soon be redundant.

The only use case for Amex currently is if you travel internationally extensively where you can get good benefits.
 
Currently Amex in India is not offering anything different than other cc providers. Personal experience - their legendary customer service has gone to dogs. The other day spent 15 mins on hold on their platinum helpdesk just to reach to the person to cancel MRCC.
Traveldesk of Amex is a big fat joke. You can get better deals on skyscanner. Heck Amex traveldesk will suggest crappy flights just because they have tie up with some useless airlines (KLM / Lufthansa etc)
Plat charge card hotel partners have devalued their programs however Amex fees remains same with poor retention benefits.

I will any day prefer HSBC premier over the current trash called Amex (and I have been with Amex since 10+ years). Also HDFC have upped their transaction monitoring game. So keeping Amex for chargebacks or fraud protection will also soon be redundant.
Okay, good that your HSBC relationship works great..
Regarding Amex services, after all Amex India can employ Indian origin employees only.
So it’s catching up with the national DNA service quality, sad to hear this
 
Tell me what pos or gateway they have. Then its easy to understand. Any CC bank issuer who issues amex has no issues. Icici and axis has no issues
Pinelabs & innoviti.

It's not about the pos or gateway. They themselves made it disabled. Because it was accepting Amex on same machines until February 2024. So instead of expansion, degradation is happening.
 
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