This may be a basic question but I am new to Amex Explorer card and smart phone.
On the question of American Express acceptance- does using say the Samsung Pay app that allows Amex, effectively extend the acceptance of Amex, or is it simply more convenient?
I understand that using PayPal for internet transactions which allows Amex to be linked, can effectively give you an Amex payment, than if going direct to the particular merchant, which may not accept Amex or charge a surcharge.
I have used PayPal very successfully to overcome the non acceptance of Amex, and wondered if the digital wallet allowed the same principle?
Your advice would be greatly appreciated.
No it doesn’t.
Just more convenient as don’t need to carry the physical card. I’ve managed to skin down my physical wallet considerably
Hi vivian,
One thing it does is ‘bypass’ the “human factor” of using Amex cards on the terminal. e.g. I have heard of instances where using digital wallet at a well-known store without the staff knowing (as the staff has to apply a surcharge manually for using Amex).
OR
Some business say they don’t accept Amex but they actually do.
But like daft009 said, if the terminal doesn’t accept Amex, digital wallet doesn’t bypass that.
Thank you both to Warren and daftoo9
There is a small advantage I see, but mainly if the terminal doesn’t accept, then Amex is not accepted, which I was mainly interested to learn.
Hadn’t actually thought of the possibility of avoiding a surcharge though…
As the others said: No, it doesn’t magically fix a terminal/merchant that doesn’t support Amex, but it does potentially bypass staff overrides.
However, some terminals (notably those new CommBank ones that look like a tablet with a fat stand) will in my experience accept Amex directly (including contactless), and accept digital wallets, but will not accept Amex in a digital wallet.