question for americans - do you use amex?

james

james

Administrator
Staff member
hi,

do any of you use amex regularly? is it widespread amongst young americans? i am thinking of adding it to our ticket shop as a payment method; but am not sure how common it is.

many thanks!
 
It is a higher end card that most young people most likely do not have...although if you can afford to go to Ibiza you might. I think most Americans have multiple cards and it shouldn't make a big differnce. RA doesn't support Amex. What is the cost involved?
 
I'm not American but I do use Amex and buy almost everything on it, including through PayPal where online sellers don't take the cards directly. Processing costs are high and retailers tend to hate it. But it's funded a shed load of free BA flights over the years as you can swap Membership Rewards points for Executive Club / Iberia Avios, so it still gets my thumbs up every time !
 
very interesting thanks.

What is the cost involved?

that's one of the problems. as kimajy says costs are high. tickets are low margin and i've seen processing costs running as high as 4.5% for amex payments. that's nearly half the profit margin. we'd have to pass some of that on to the user; but if the rewards are high for using amex and people feel comfortable paying with it, then having a small handling fee is not a barrier imo. we charge a small handling fee for paypal and that is still a very popular payment option.
 
kimajy said:
I'm not American but I do use Amex and buy almost everything on it, including through PayPal where online sellers don't take the cards directly. Processing costs are high and retailers tend to hate it. But it's funded a shed load of free BA flights over the years as you can swap Membership Rewards points for Executive Club / Iberia Avios, so it still gets my thumbs up every time !
Click to expand...

"buy almost everything on it ..." where ? in ibiza ?? definitely NOT.
actually if you go to ibiza and you just come with an amex-card it will be a desaster.
(almost) everbody hates it - only very very few places accept it because theese greedy bastards have by far the highest costs.
only the big hotelcompanies and carrentals accept it ... many beachclubs, shops, restaurants NOT.
their standard answer when you ask is, yes ec-card and all credit-cards -
besides amex.
i had to learn this the hard way - when most of my other stuff was stolen !

i still have mine, but more or less just for "nostalgic" reasons.
99% i use mastercard/visa.
already back in the day in usa - f.e. in the tiniest t-shirt-parlours in venice beach-
they accepted mastercard and rejected americanexpress.
so from private standpoint relying on americanexpress in ibiza is an absolute no-go !

but nevertheless a company like ibiza-spotlight should give the customer the possibility
to choose between all big creditcardcompanies - including amex.
 
its def #3 in the US terms of the # of people that have one compared to visa and mastercard.

the question is are you somehow missing out on sales by not offering it.... my guess is probably not as people will just use visa/mc if they have to.
 
Add it with the extra charge. Then if someone wants to expense parties on their corporate card they can!
 
"Then if someone wants to expense parties on their corporate card they can!" - lol
 
Im 26 (live in usa), and work for Chase/JP Morgan, i have a really good card that Chase offers as well as an Amex card as a backup. From my experience anyone that has an Amex card, usually has one other card as well. Most people prefer Amex if they have it, but i would say that given the fact most Amex owners carry another form, especially if they travel a decent amount (in case you lose one of your cards, or it gets rejected for overseas use etc) you dont need to offer it. Amex's low end cards are not hard to get in america so people definitely have them, but i dont think your missing out on too many ticket sales because you dont offer Amex.
 
Yes, very popular behind Visa and Mastercard. I just signed up for one cause they offered me an incredible reward points deal.
 
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