AMEX gonna code what AMEX wants to.
I work for a POS company, based on my experience.
A lot of the time Amex uses different MCC’s then V/MC.
While I agree it’s odd that before it posted as a restaurant and now it’s posting as something different, this doesn’t mean that you would have received extra points had it shown up as restaurants.
MCC is determined by the Merchant and payment processor. Amex is the processor of its own network, but it does bundle it out to 3rd party companies if the merchant does below a certain amount of business. This is all negotiated to try to obtain the best rates. Some businesses will classify as something different if it saves them money on the swipe fees.
The one thing I’ve noticed with Amex is that any online purchase codes as such. It normally always shows internet purchase somewhere in the MCC. Card not present normally gets higher swipe fees so that may have something to do with it.
A lot of the time Amex uses different MCC’s then V/MC.
While I agree it’s odd that before it posted as a restaurant and now it’s posting as something different, this doesn’t mean that you would have received extra points had it shown up as restaurants.
MCC is determined by the Merchant and payment processor. Amex is the processor of its own network, but it does bundle it out to 3rd party companies if the merchant does below a certain amount of business. This is all negotiated to try to obtain the best rates. Some businesses will classify as something different if it saves them money on the swipe fees.
The one thing I’ve noticed with Amex is that any online purchase codes as such. It normally always shows internet purchase somewhere in the MCC. Card not present normally gets higher swipe fees so that may have something to do with it.
+1 @Shadowfactor
The Amex program for merchants to be able to process Amex using their existing V/MC processor is called OptBlue and the annual sales cap is $1 million.
The Amex program for merchants to be able to process Amex using their existing V/MC processor is called OptBlue and the annual sales cap is $1 million.
If the code comes across onto your statement in a less than expected way you can call AmEx to talk about it. Since they are both the card issuer and the network provider they can see the whole thing end to end. I have had cases in the past with Discover where some things coded funny. I had a case of a Restaurant that I sat down and ate come up as Miscellaneous Retail. Obviously they checked what the restaurant was reporting to them and found the reporting code was correct but the grouping was a mistake and it did go under Restaurants 5%.
