It depends on the types of places you frequent while outside the USA. If you are a high roller then it's likely you'll be able to use your Amex fairly often. If you are going to supermarkets and family-owned restaurants and buying metro tickets and so on, then you're likely to find Amex acceptance to be a challenge. I totally gave up on trying to use mine since it was rejected far more often than accepted.
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Goldman Sachs Wants to End Apple Partnership, American Express Might Take Over
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In the US (and much of the world), AMEX is superior from an offers/membership side.
I'm all AMEX.
If that is the case, I might actually get an Apple card then. I refuse to do bidness with Goldman sucks as they were part of the 2008 financial meltdown.
100%. Amex is the best card issuer going right now. The fact that they're also the issuing bank is a huge plus.
Preface: I’m team Amex for big purchases and anything I want to leverage their protections on.
But, you can already pay your bill with Apple Cash earned from using Apple Card, or use it as a form of payment with Apple Pay. I believe you can also transfer to your bank. Discover ‘it’ cash back can also be used to pay your bill; you can also buy discounted gift cards, transfer to bank, and can use it as direct payment with Amazon and PayPal. For both cards the bill pay option is also a bit better than Amex —it’s a direct, instant payment instead of a statement credit that doesn’t count as your actual payment.
I’m not sure I like this. My wife and I use our joint Apple Card nearly 100% of the time as the Wallet interface helps us stay on budget. AmEx is not accepted as many places as MasterCard. Having a credit card I can’t use does me no good. Would probably just cancel the card then.
Many seem to be overreacting. I have an Apple Card but it’s hardly used. For sub prime users it’s a good card. For others it kind of sucks. Most will simply use at apple or default card for iTunes. The physical card? I’m not even sure which drawer I hid it in. It’s been used once.
My main is chase sapphire/ink/freedom and their points. Others like Amex points but I don’t use much of their travel partners as the value lies in transferring. I haven’t paid for a southwest flight in ages. Or a hotel.
My main is chase sapphire/ink/freedom and their points. Others like Amex points but I don’t use much of their travel partners as the value lies in transferring. I haven’t paid for a southwest flight in ages. Or a hotel.
To be fair, most of the benefits tied to Apple Card are related to Apple Pay. If a business accepts Apple Pay, it also accepts AMEX.
Uh… sorry but that’s not true. Businesses that don’t take Amex, but do take ApplePay, will not let you use Amex on ApplePay.
Apple Pay completely different thing from Apple Card? Terms are being conflated. Apple Pay is the Apple feature for contactless payment and or Online payment transaction. Apple Card is the actual Credit card by GS and Mastercard. You would use Amex card through Apple Pay, but the store would have to accept it.
I’m not sure what you are talking about. All the previous posts used the terms ApplePay and Apple Card correctly as well as correctly understanding the difference. No conflation here.
Ok thought that what was being said in the statement saying you can use Amex if ApplePay is accepted. I misread that then. Sorry.
That has more to do with Apple than GS. Apple has decided to apply their “secrecy first” approach to Apple Card, which just doesn’t work for banking.
That would be incredible! My better half works for AMEX Travel, maybe then he would finally get on board...
Same. When it came I immediately cancelled it. The operator couldn’t believe I cancel the card before I activated it. 😂
I find Matt Taibbi's quote from an article years ago to be apt:
[Goldman Sachs is] "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessy jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."
[Goldman Sachs is] "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessy jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."
Obviously we're a ways out for any potential change, but like a lot of card-issuing banks, Amex has some "rules" about product changes. They generally only allow you to change cards that have the same kind of rewards, but also the same billing structure (credit card vs. charge card). Someone with a Green/Gold/Platinum (MR-earning charge cards) can only convert to those, while someone with a Cash Magnet/Blue Cash Everyday/Blue Cash Preferred (cash back earning credit cards) and only convert to those. The same goes for EveryDay/EveryDay Preferred, Hilton, or Delta cards. Personal an business cards can't be product changed into each other either.
I'd guess that an Amex Apple Card would be stuck as-is or would get lumped in with the cash back personal credit cards behind the scenes.
The only real exception to this has been a few weird conversions for discontinued products (original Blue card -> EveryDay, original Blue card -> Cash Magnet, Zync -> Gold, Optima -> EveryDay) or they just leave it as-is (Zync and Clear).
Obviously mom and sister never traveled outside of the USA. In Cancun Mexico, not one restaurant or hotel accepted American Express, not one. Also the costs at that time for American Express to retailers forced many to say no thanks. Now we talk about Europe, American Express, never the most answered. Visa and Master Card, zero problems every corner of the world. I want to have a card that does not restrict me to the five business in my home town. No thanks American Express.
Pretty much every card allows you to apply cash back points to your c/c bill. Unless I misunderstood what you're trying to say. But it's typically a better idea to deposit the points as cash in your checking account and then use the money to pay off your bill. Both of my cash back cards exclude transactions that were paid off with points from calculating the new point balance for the current period. I.e. if I have $150 worth of points from prior statements, and apply them to the c/c balance, that $150 is subtracted from the total before they calculate points for the current statement. But if I deposit that $150 in a bank account, and use it to pay the c/c bill, I am still earning points on that amount.
Apple Card is good if you're buying lots of Apple products, or if you just like the design and integration. But the benefits are fairly mediocre compared to other offerings. I pay everything I can with a c/c, then pay off the bill in full at the end of the month. My main c/c setup is giving me 2.2% cash back on all purchases, as opposed to just over 1% effective cash back rate I'd be getting with Apple Pay. That means that I'd be losing almost half of my cash back every year using Apple Card.
And that's not some towels, that's actual real money, 1 point = 1 cent. Every $1000 I spend with that card gives me $22 back in hard cash. And when you have a family and put every purchase you can on a c/c that adds up very quickly.
do you mean you would switch to a google credit car because of this or are you assuming this is related to Apple Pay. It’s not. This just has to do with the Apple branded credit card that we signed up for. It is just one card that I have and use with Apple Pay. If GS bows out and Amex steps in, it will just be a change in a credit card which has little impact on what technology stack I choose.