New American Express Users Can Add Card Instantly to Apple Pay After Being Approved

[Fusionskies]

Not everyone gets a credit card to go into debt. If one is responsible and pays the statement balance every month credit cards can be a great way to earn rewards toward free stuff.

This... I use my gold cc all the time to get decent perks. I used to be put off by credit cards, now I wish I got one sooner, esp with AMEX.

 

[steevn]

Because waiting a few days longer to begin drowning in debt is just not acceptable.

I don’t make a single purchase without using a credit card, and have zero debt. You have no idea how much money you’re missing out by avoiding credit cards. This isn’t even counting the cards I have with high annual fees.
It’s very easy to use credit cards correctly, once that part is down, it’s literally free money just for swiping a certain card.

 

[PODshady]

This... I use my gold cc all the time to get decent perks. I used to be put off by credit cards, now I wish I got one sooner, esp with AMEX.

I LOVE my Amex Gold Card. I use it exclusively for all of my purchases and pay it off in full every month.

The perks are going to be even better in 2021 when the $120 Uber/Uber Eats credits go live.

 

[boilerdam]

This doesn't work at all with AmEx.

I just got approved for a new premium card, my first AmEx card, on Saturday (11/14/2020). I got the card number and a temporary CID once I accepted all the terms and completed the red tape. I proceeded to create an account with AmEx and read through the instructions to add it to Apple Pay. I downloaded the app (per the instructions) and in the app is the feature to add it to Apple Pay. The last step in the process is to enter the 4-digit CID number of the card. Per the instructions, I gave it the temp CID. First try - failed and a warning pops up telling me I have 2 more tries before the account is locked out. I thought, ok, maybe I did a typo. So, I tried it once more - fail and account locked out. So, WTF? locked out after 2 tries and the temp CID didn't work. Anyway, it asked me to call the number on the back of the card. Since I don't have the card, I just Googled it.

I wasn't in a big hurry to start using the card. After some time, I called AmEx to unlock the account. Turns out, I cannot unlock the account without the 3-digit code on the back of the card. What a convoluted mess??!! When I asked why the account locked out in the first place, I was told that I could not add the card to Apple Pay without getting the physical card. Aha! What a bummer but the feature about the article in this blog doesn't work. However, I was given a valid card number and I already tested it out by using it for an online charity donation and it went through. So, the card is active just the feature to immediately add it to Apple Pay is BS.

My guess is that the system needs some time for the number and other information to propagate through. And if one of those steps needs a human in the chain, then being a weekend, the absence of that human just breaks the chain.

 

[tmiw]

I think the US contactless game was different. Some big not particularly customer oriented stores like Walmart, Kroger, etc., saw the shift as an opportunity to coopt the tech by monopolizing with their own “Pay” functions. They started with CurrentC which was rejected by customer ms and defections by inaugural signees who went to Apple Pay for NFC convenience and faster checkout thruput. Walmart and IIRC Kroger picked up the CurrentC source code and put their own branding mask on top of it.

I feel like CurrentC was in progress way before Apple rolled out Apple Pay. The latter just bumped up the former's expected release timeline, is all, and since they couldn't release it quickly enough after Apple Pay came out (among other issues)...let's just say we know how it ended.

They did this because it would be a way to force users in a default way to pay with debit cards which have lower fees than credit.

ACH, actually. Even debit cards can have significant interchange costs if they're the "wrong" types (i.e. anything issued by a smaller bank or credit union).

Now I expect that out of concern of lawsuits stemming from infecting their customers at checkouts, more so than just protecting those customers, Kroger is again trialing Apple Pay up in WA state. (Heard Walmart was up to something similar but didn’t confirm it because I don’t know anybody who likes to shop there.)

Customer demand picked up significantly, for sure, which is probably what drove it more than anything else. Otherwise, I imagine the holdouts would have been pushing other "contactless" methods more (such as curbside pickup/delivery).

 

[iBreatheApple]

What’s the circle at the bottom of the screen?

 

[RomanEmpire]

Great, and yet, Amex doesn‘t work with Apple Pay in Austria 🙄

 

[jimthing]

I’m a yank posted to Switzerland (I suppose link is for folks w a USA home address. But try it anyway, I think it refers to not just the blue card but all AMEX ((USA?)) cards on offer.) Best part about Delta SkyMiles if you get them is they never expire so accumulating them with such a card over time eventually results in a trip.)

Folks are pretty CC paranoid here, preferring cash or debit cards. LoL. But the payment infrastructure is pretty much all contactless (except bus) and surprisingly many places take AMEX (except my local McDonald’s LoL.)

In the UK, the govt have Section 75 cover on all cc's (not dc's), that is insurance for any goods or services bought using one between £100-£30K. That's mainly why people sometimes like to use their cc's here, in case something goes wrong, the cc company is required to reimburse you in full. That's really worth having when you're buying something expensive, rather than so-called half-baked "rewards".

Forget collecting silly points, that are often rubbish, and the money to pay for them is added to the cost of everything we buy. 🙄
Hence the European interchange limitations, to stop such a falsehood.

 

[Robert.Walter]

Actually a number of merchants other than Apple itself have jumped on board and now offer 3% cashback with the Apple Card + Apple Pay instead of just 2% (Uber, Walgreens and Panera, for example), and presumably more will join the group later.

Agreed. I don’t have those companies here so I don’t think about that aspect much. As for the states I think about the benefits to my mom and sisters and about the only one of those the go to (not since covid) is Panera. The 2% is 2x what the Costco card offers for 3rd party grocery stores.

 

[Robert.Walter]

In the UK, the govt have Section 75 cover on all cc's (not dc's), that is insurance for any goods or services bought using one between £100-£30K. That's mainly why people sometimes like to use their cc's here, in case something goes wrong, the cc company is required to reimburse you in full. That's really worth having when you're buying something expensive, rather than so-called half-baked "rewards".

Forget collecting silly points, that are often rubbish, and the money to pay for them is added to the cost of everything we buy. 🙄
Hence the European interchange limitations, to stop such a falsehood.

The falsehood of your logic is that my not collecting points isn’t going to reduce the price of things I buy. It’s been baked in for years. Because I can’t change this dynamic, I’d be a sucker not to use my card to recapture this surcharge b

 

[slippery-pete]

What's wrong with it?

Stopped working. I use to get notifications anytime there was a charge on my account. Now if I make a purchase, no notification.

was very helpful. Actually was able to identify fraud twice on my account and limit loss to Amex.

 

[slippery-pete]

seriously! they've gotten so much worst as of late

I am amazed that it hasn’t been corrected yet. Amex should know that this helps cardmembers identify fraud and limit loses.

 

[4jasontv]

Stopped working. I use to get notifications anytime there was a charge on my account. Now if I make a purchase, no notification.

was very helpful. Actually was able to identify fraud twice on my account and limit loss to Amex.

Oh. I rely on those messages to fix double charges. I’d push the issue with Amex. My carrier was blocking short code messages, and it had no effect on Amex alerts, so I can’t think of why it would be an issue with the carrier.

 

[4jasontv]

Not everyone gets a credit card to go into debt. If one is responsible and pays the statement balance every month credit cards can be a great way to earn rewards toward free stuff.

I got an Amex when I was 20 because my dad wanted me to have a layer of protection between purchases and my money. I’ve had such good experiences with them that I’ve never gotten a different card. If someone doesn’t take Amex I politely move along.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I've never been able to qualify for an Amex. Of course, now at this point in my life I have way too many credit cards and REALLY like my Apple Credit Card (convenience).

What was interesting was... when I went to Peru... people with AMEX cards could go to front of lines, get preferential treatment almost anywhere. That was surprising. lol.

 

[CarpalMac]

Not everyone gets a credit card to go into debt. If one is responsible and pays the statement balance every month credit cards can be a great way to earn rewards toward free stuff.

More than just that, in the UK I put everything I can through my credit card.

Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act - Which?

If you buy goods or services on your credit card, Section 75 can give you extra protection if things go wrong.

www.which.co.uk

When you have companies that flagrantly break consumer law (staring right at you, Currys), the credit card takes all the drama away. As far as I am aware, Debit cards offer no such protection.

 

[jimthing]

The falsehood of your logic is that my not collecting points isn’t going to reduce the price of things I buy. It’s been baked in for years. Because I can’t change this dynamic, I’d be a sucker not to use my card to recapture this surcharge b

Baked-in in the US maybe, just not in Europe, for the clear reasoning I explained: it's effectively just a bogus markup selling technique, paid for by shops charging higher than necessary prices to cover higher interchange fees over there. So yes US users may as well take the offering, we generally don't bother as they're limited to mostly crap over here.

A gimmick that effectively contributes to many financially uneducated to get into debt; hence curtailed here.

 

[tmiw]

Baked-in in the US maybe, just not in Europe, for the clear reasoning I explained: it's effectively just a bogus markup selling technique, paid for by shops charging higher than necessary prices to cover higher interchange fees over there. So yes US users may as well take the offering, we generally don't bother as they're limited to mostly crap over here.

A gimmick that effectively contributes to many financially uneducated to get into debt; hence curtailed here.

Debit card use has always been more common than credit cards in Europe, though, even before the EU capped interchange. It's more of a difference in culture/value system than anything else.

However, that's not to say that the networks can necessarily justify what they're asking for now. In fact, some concesssions might very well be a good idea, though I'm not sure any cost savings on the merchant side would end up getting passed to consumers. For instance, debit card interchange is capped for most debit cards here (plus the rules were changed to allow minimums and surcharging on credit cards), yet there was little to no decrease in prices--not to mention that the latter still aren't common practice ~10 years later.