Using only AmEx and Discover?

[Anonymous]

Lots of mom and pop shops only accept visa/mastercard only. One of my favorite Chinese restaurant accept Visa/mastercard/American express. My favorite Korean restaurants accept all 4 cards (which was surprising).
Business won't lose me as a customer just because they don't accept the card I wanna pay with. Working at a small business place, I know card fees can get quite high (when one transaction goes well over couple grand), but with limited customers we can't simply choose not to have business with them because they want to pay us with American express or discover.

[Anonymous]

AmEx acceptance certainly does vary. I live in Washington, DC and i'd say about half the sit down restaurants I go to accept AmEx. Discover, on the other hand, seems to hvae prevalent acceptance. I've not yet run into a situation in which I couldn't use my Discover.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

AmEx acceptance certainly does vary. I live in Washington, DC and i'd say about half the sit down restaurants I go to accept AmEx. Discover, on the other hand, seems to hvae prevalent acceptance. I've not yet run into a situation in which I couldn't use my Discover.

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I used to think the bill folios that had the AmEx logo were proof enough that they accepted it. Until that one time when that wasn't actually true. 

[Anonymous]

As someone who works at a business that doesn't take Amex or Discover, I kinda doubt we are losing anything. We code as a non bonus restaurant, and almost no one tries to pay with Amex anyway. And if they have a significant tab, I will take it. But as we are a bar (not sure who set up our initial coding) and the average tab is less than 20 bucks the extra cost of processing Amex hurts. I do the books so I see it. I do have a couple customers who bring in big groups and I will let them pay with their Amex, but for a 2 drink, 11 dollar tab, no. Credit cards have gone from being less than 25 percent of sales to almost 75. And we have raised prices for that reason. Credit card customers almost never get a drink bought, cash customers do, frequently. I gladly pay cash at mom and pop places, and nearly always pay with a card at chains of any type. I will however tip in cash even at those places.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

AmEx acceptance certainly does vary. I live in Washington, DC and i'd say about half the sit down restaurants I go to accept AmEx. Discover, on the other hand, seems to hvae prevalent acceptance. I've not yet run into a situation in which I couldn't use my Discover.

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I used to think the bill folios that had the AmEx logo were proof enough that they accepted it. Until that one time when that wasn't actually true. 

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Often those bill folios travel with the server. I have about 30 of them in my closet from over the years. Probably a couple of them are still Diners Club

[ways2go]

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@Anonymous wrote:

As someone who works at a business that doesn't take Amex or Discover, I kinda doubt we are losing anything. We code as a non bonus restaurant, and almost no one tries to pay with Amex anyway. And if they have a significant tab, I will take it. But as we are a bar (not sure who set up our initial coding) and the average tab is less than 20 bucks the extra cost of processing Amex hurts. I do the books so I see it. I do have a couple customers who bring in big groups and I will let them pay with their Amex, but for a 2 drink, 11 dollar tab, no. Credit cards have gone from being less than 25 percent of sales to almost 75. And we have raised prices for that reason. Credit card customers almost never get a drink bought, cash customers do, frequently. I gladly pay cash at mom and pop places, and nearly always pay with a card at chains of any type. I will however tip in cash even at those places.

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I always try to make sure I have cash for the tip at restaurants.  The tip is for your waitress or waiter.  Some places I hear if you put the tip on your card,  the establishment will charge a percentage to the waitress/waiter tips before cashing out their tips.

[Anonymous]

I use Amex and Discover almost exclusively.

Amex is pretty universally accepted here in ATL.  I've run into a couple of restaurants that don't take Discover (which I won't care much about after June 30).

I do carry a MC for the odd place that doesn't accept either.

[takeshi74]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Just curious if there is anyone who only uses AmEx and Discover for their purchases. I suppose it would be manageable, as long as you use Discovers "cash over" to always carry around extra money, for those places that only accept Visa or MC.

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No idea. It's certainly possible but if you're considering it you have to determine the feasibility specifically for yourself either way.  Part of the reason I use cards is for rewards, the protections, etc and those don't come with cash.

[Anonymous]

There was a point a couple of years ago when I was a university student and had a AmEx platinum. I used to exclusively go to places that accepted AmEx Platinum. Well I used to heavily use the concierge to eat out. My dad picked up the bill so I made use. I use to bill about $10k+ on it. I would spend more than most other customers, so some restaurants lost out.

[Anonymous]

all prices are marked up to accept credit card fees so paying in cash is quite literally a waste of money.