topic Re: AMEX Split-It Pilot in Credit Cards

AMEX Split-It Pilot

NRB525 — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 08:00:04 GMT

AMEX has a new feature, you can link your PayPal or Venmo account into your AMEX profile. Then any transaction on your AMEX cards, you can see a "Split It" icon on the transaction details, to send a payment request through those "expense sharing" services to do cost sharing.

I have only been able to set it up, not actually share a cost yet, but it seems another innovation by AMEX to keep up with how people want to use their cards. If you are the payer of the shared cost, such as a meal out, your AMEX gets the points.

Re: AMEX Split-It Pilot

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 11:30:28 GMT

So if we go out and you use this, you collect the points, you decide how much to tip, and I get to pay cash immediately instead of benefitting from the grace period.

This at a point in time when restaurant software generates individual bills in less time than the Split-it takes.I noticed it on my account the other day but didn't bother with it. I don't eat out with people that stupid

Re: AMEX Split-It Pilot

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 13:30:08 GMT

Very interesting, thanks for sharing @NRB525 !

Re: AMEX Split-It Pilot

iced — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 13:35:46 GMT

@NRB525 wrote:
AMEX has a new feature, you can link your PayPal or Venmo account into your AMEX profile. Then any transaction on your AMEX cards, you can see a "Split It" icon on the transaction details, to send a payment request through those "expense sharing" services to do cost sharing.

I have only been able to set it up, not actually share a cost yet, but it seems another innovation by AMEX to keep up with how people want to use their cards. If you are the payer of the shared cost, such as a meal out, your AMEX gets the points.

I'm not quite following. Is this providing some way for you to earn MR even when you don't use your card or is this just a glorified calculator that lets people keep track of who owes them what?

Re: AMEX Split-It Pilot

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 14:32:45 GMT

@iced wrote:

I'm not quite following. Is this providing some way for you to earn MR even when you don't use your card or is this just a glorified calculator that lets people keep track of who owes them what?

It would let you keep the MR for everyone, while they pay you cash over a month before you have to pay Amex. I imagine a lot of people will use it, but not many who hang around here.

Example: We go out to dinner. It cost $50 total. I put it on an Amex Gold and collect 200 MR points, while you get to pay me $25 cash right away insead of waiting for your own credit card's bill.

Re: AMEX Split-It Pilot

Remedios — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 15:37:04 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@iced wrote:

I'm not quite following. Is this providing some way for you to earn MR even when you don't use your card or is this just a glorified calculator that lets people keep track of who owes them what?
It would let you keep the MR for everyone, while they pay you cash over a month before you have to pay Amex. I imagine a lot of people will use it, but not many who hang around here.

Example: We go out to dinner. It cost $50 total. I put it on an Amex Gold and collect 200 MR points, while you get to pay me $25 cash right away insead of waiting for your own credit card's bill.

Do you ever eat out with other people?

Most use cash or debit cards. Last time I checked, no Amex M&Ms on cash or debit.

Re: AMEX Split-It Pilot

iced — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 15:39:35 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
It would let you keep the MR for everyone, while they pay you cash over a month before you have to pay Amex. I imagine a lot of people will use it, but not many who hang around here.

Example: We go out to dinner. It cost $50 total. I put it on an Amex Gold and collect 200 MR points, while you get to pay me $25 cash right away insead of waiting for your own credit card's bill.

I'm not seeing how this is any different than if I throw everyone's dinner on my card and they pay me cash or get my dinner next time we're out. It feels a bit like a flashy interface thrown on top of nothing at all, with the added bonus that you share who you had dinner with with AmEx so they can know, too.

Am I missing something else here?

Re: AMEX Split-It Pilot

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 17:42:03 GMT

@Remedios wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@iced wrote:

I'm not quite following. Is this providing some way for you to earn MR even when you don't use your card or is this just a glorified calculator that lets people keep track of who owes them what?
It would let you keep the MR for everyone, while they pay you cash over a month before you have to pay Amex. I imagine a lot of people will use it, but not many who hang around here.

Example: We go out to dinner. It cost $50 total. I put it on an Amex Gold and collect 200 MR points, while you get to pay me $25 cash right away insead of waiting for your own credit card's bill.

Do you ever eat out with other people?
Most use cash or debit cards. Last time I checked, no Amex M&Ms on cash or debit.

We are not talking about my life at all, we are talking about a hypothetical situation that Amex created this for. Cash and debit don't enter into the situation at all.

But for the record, most people I eat out with pay by credit card, as do I. I do sometimes eat out with people who pay cash or debit. Once again, we can have the restaurant split the bill, or they can send me the money or hand it to me. We really don't need Amex or Paypal's help with it, regardless of how we do things.

Re: AMEX Split-It Pilot

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 18:24:11 GMT

At first glance I'm seeing it as just another way for them to pry into other sectors of your financial picture. Everyone I eat out with pay their own bill, either with CC, debit or cash.

However, I do see the positive side for the Gold Card holder who pays the whole bill and collects the points. Then his/her buddies just pay them back with cash. After all, if they're paing with cash anyways, then they're not concerned with earning points etc.

Just recently Two friends and I ate out after a Movie and one paid in cash. I asked why he wasn't using his rewards CC, and he said it has balance trying to pay off.

As for this, I'll wait for more DP on whether it will be useful or not. But I don't really see it taking off for reason already said above. As most my friends don't even have PP/Venmo anyway.

Re: AMEX Split-It Pilot

Brian_Earl_Spilner — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 18:27:11 GMT

Oh, I'll be all over this

Re: AMEX Split-It Pilot

Brian_Earl_Spilner — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 18:33:38 GMT

For those that don't see the point, you obviously don't eat out in large groups for special occasions much. Most restaurants will not split a check if the party is large enough or you have to push it hard. On top of that. Trying to get everyone to pay their bill so we can leave is a task. I pay for the bill, we settle up later. This will allow me to just invoice them. And just because they're invoiced, doesn't mean they have to pay right away. They can take a month to pay it if they needed to.

Re: AMEX Split-It Pilot

wasCB14 — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 19:24:01 GMT

@Remedios "Do you ever eat out with other people? Most use cash or debit cards. Last time I checked, no Amex M&Ms on cash or debit. "

Would those people need PayPal or Venmo accounts to participate in this feature?

The few cash users I know favor cash for its simplicity...and/or the lack of a paper trail. I have a hard time seeing them willing to bother with an invoice.

Re: AMEX Split-It Pilot

iced — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 19:29:55 GMT

@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:
For those that don't see the point, you obviously don't eat out in large groups for special occasions much. Most restaurants will not split a check if the party is large enough or you have to push it hard. On top of that. Trying to get everyone to pay their bill so we can leave is a task. I pay for the bill, we settle up later. This will allow me to just invoice them. And just because they're invoiced, doesn't mean they have to pay right away. They can take a month to pay it if they needed to.

Not quite. I do eat out white a bit, including with large groups and the wait staff don't split the check. It's quite typical for us to "split" a check evenly across party members where one person pays for everyone and the rest toss in cash, or we rotate who buys dinner next time so we all eventually work out even in the end. And, since I have math skills greater than or equal to a third-grade education, I don't need an app to tell me how much each person owes me.

I will say the ability to directly charge someone can be useful for no other reason than to automate their ability to submit payment electronically back to me without me having to manually request it, but I suspect with this I'm still punching in information like that person's email address and such so AmEx knows where to send the invoices, so that automation is largely undermined. In the time it takes me to do that, I can have collected a few Jacksons each from person A and C, and a free dinner at a later time from person B and D. Heck, I've often done this as a replacement for hitting the ATM.

Mildly interesting additional feature that might get the very occasional use? Sure. It doesn't add any value, but it doesn't take any away, either.

Re: AMEX Split-It Pilot

wasCB14 — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 19:30:17 GMT

@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:
For those that don't see the point, you obviously don't eat out in large groups for special occasions much. Most restaurants will not split a check if the party is large enough or you have to push it hard. On top of that. Trying to get everyone to pay their bill so we can leave is a task. I pay for the bill, we settle up later. This will allow me to just invoice them. And just because they're invoiced, doesn't mean they have to pay right away. They can take a month to pay it if they needed to.

Though you may need to deal with people's faulty memories, arguments over who had how much of a shared appetizer, whether an item was received or billed in error, etc.

Re: AMEX Split-It Pilot

Remedios — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 19:35:41 GMT

@wasCB14 wrote:
@Remedios"Do you ever eat out with other people? Most use cash or debit cards. Last time I checked, no Amex M&Ms on cash or debit. "

Would those people need PayPal or Venmo accounts to participate in this feature?
The few cash users I know favor cash for its simplicity...and/or the lack of a paper trail. I have a hard time seeing them willing to bother with an invoice.

I dont like Amex, so no amex cards for me, but I certainly have PayPay account. So, should we happen to have a dinner, this feature would be to your benefit, not mine

Re: AMEX Split-It Pilot

NRB525 — Wed, 25 Dec 2019 12:25:19 GMT

@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:
For those that don't see the point, you obviously don't eat out in large groups for special occasions much. Most restaurants will not split a check if the party is large enough or you have to push it hard. On top of that. Trying to get everyone to pay their bill so we can leave is a task. I pay for the bill, we settle up later. This will allow me to just invoice them. And just because they're invoiced, doesn't mean they have to pay right away. They can take a month to pay it if they needed to.

This. I was able to look at other charges, and not just dining, to Split-It for what looks like anything.

I get that many here won't see the feature as useful, but that's not necessary for the technology to be notable. By adding this feature, AMEX takes another step in being just a little more innovative than other banks. Fact is, there are quite a few users of Venmo and PayPal for this sort of cost splitting already. Those users are just exchanging cash in the current methods. They won't be perturbed by having the group member with an AMEX initiating the request. Heck, the group doesn't have to know the other users' payment method at all.

Congrats to all those who won't ever use Split-It.

Re: AMEX Split-It Pilot

Brian_Earl_Spilner — Wed, 25 Dec 2019 15:23:26 GMT

@NRB525 wrote:
@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:
For those that don't see the point, you obviously don't eat out in large groups for special occasions much. Most restaurants will not split a check if the party is large enough or you have to push it hard. On top of that. Trying to get everyone to pay their bill so we can leave is a task. I pay for the bill, we settle up later. This will allow me to just invoice them. And just because they're invoiced, doesn't mean they have to pay right away. They can take a month to pay it if they needed to.
This. I was able to look at other charges, and not just dining, to Split-It for what looks like anything.

I get that many here won't see the feature as useful, but that's not necessary for the technology to be notable. By adding this feature, AMEX takes another step in being just a little more innovative than other banks. Fact is, there are quite a few users of Venmo and PayPal for this sort of cost splitting already. Those users are just exchanging cash in the current methods. They won't be perturbed by having the group member with an AMEX initiating the request. Heck, the group doesn't have to know the other users' payment method at all.

Congrats to all those who won't ever use Split-It.

Indeed. Hate to break it to everyone, but this is a feature people want. If I go somewhere with people that are tech savvy or younger, it's extremely common to venmo someone else. Almost nobody carries cash anymore so it's an easy way to split the tab and I don't have to go into the PayPal or venmo app. I just simply do it whenever I log into Amex while I do my normal stuff.

Re: AMEX Split-It Pilot

randomguy1 — Wed, 25 Dec 2019 16:48:10 GMT

^^ same.

All my friends have cc’s with rewards and if a restaurant is being fussy about splitting the check, we put it on one card and Venmo each other. It’s very rare I find a friend without Venmo, PayPal, or Zelle.