Do You Take Amex?
I don’t have an American Express because the company wisely refuses to give me one, but this past week I’ve asked two different stores around Siam if they take Amex on behalf of someone else and the answer has been yes both times – until we got to the cash register.
Is this a clever sales tactic or language barrier problem? Has anyone else experienced this?
I recall from friends who have an Amex back in Sydney that it’s quite common a business won’t accept the card as a form of payment and, if my memory serves me correctly, it’s because of the conditions that Amex have in place for a business to be able to accept one.
Does anyone know more about this? It’d be interesting to see a comparison of the percentage of businesses in Bangkok that take Amex compared to other cards.
AMEX take a 4% cut in any transaction, comparing to 2-3% for Visa or Master. I think it’s the same all over the world.
Amex also charges I believe an extra dollar for every transaction from the merchant, but I believe they’re phasing that out.