Probably has to do with Apple Pay is mastercard. A lot of places don't take mc for some reason
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Costco won’t take MC. It’s gotta be Visa. But far more places won’t take American Express. And more and more places are now passing along all credit card transaction fees to the consumer.
My debit card is a Master Card and it will let me run it as credit, so IDK.
Costco makes a deal for reduced processing fees with with whatever payment processor their banking partner uses for their credit card. By not accepting cards from any other network, Visa probably makes more in fees than if Costco accepted other cards even if Costco is only paying half of the typical fee. Case in point, before Costco was Partnered with Citi and Visa, they were partnered with AMEX and only accepted AMEX cards. The deal with Citi will end and they'll make a new deal with whoever makes them the best offer on fees.
Also, more and more businesses keep coming up with ways to do anything except raise their actual advertised prices and it is getting ridiculous.
With all networks, are fees typically lower for online transactions versus in-store? I'm wondering why Costco accepts MC on its website but not in its stores.
They may have a separate agreement for online sales or, likely, accept MC online so they can accept debit cards on the Mastercard network. I don't think you can do a straight debit transaction online, there is no way to do chip+PIN. Plus running a debit card as credit offers better coverage for fraud for the merchant and the consumer.
I learned the later the hard way years ago when my debit card and PIN got skimmed at a gas station and someone cloned it the next day to spend $800 at the local outlet center. The charges that were run as credit were reversed almost right away, the ones that they ran as debit had to be "investigated" by my bank (Chase) and I ended up having to eat the $350 in debit charges. A friend who worked for Wells Fargo told me that the credit card network covers disputes for charges run as credit while the bank is on it's own for debit transactions. I don't know if that is still true, but since then I always try to choose the option to run my debit card as credit where possible.
