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Visa and American Express Vying to Win Apple Card Deal in 'Fierce' Fight

sw1tcher said:
Waiting for Capital One to swoop in from nowhere to win the deal. They are buying Discover Financial so they could act as both the payment network and the issuing bank. Capital One also could easily take over the Apple Savings account.

For those wondering, Discover Card is actually accepted at slightly more places around the world and in the U.S. than American Express according to WalletHub

Discover and American Express also have lower acceptance rates than the other networks, although Discover holds the edge over Amex in that regard. Discover is accepted at 10.64 million U.S. merchant locations and in more than 200 countries. American Express lags behind at 10.6 million and 160+, respectively.

and NerdWallet
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The reason being Discover (US) - JCB (Japan) - UnionPay (China) is a joint network in and of themselves, the three networks have a reciprocal agreement with other. If you go to the middle of nowhere in Japan or China a Discover card is actually your best bet moreso than Amex/MasterCard/Visa. I miss when JCB used to issue cards in the US before they ended all operations here…
Spokeyourname said:
I use my platinum amex for just about everything, and use my Apple Card when I'm somewhere amex isn't accepted. A lot of the smaller stores, my wife's nail salon, and international locations don't like AMEX. They have the highest fee to the retailer. So hoping visa wins this one or I'll most likely never use my Apple Card again.
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Categorically wrong. Amex was once expensive to accept, but rates are standard and very reasonable nowadays compared to the sliding scale Visa and MasterCard uses. The top end of each, the Visa Infinite and MasterCard World Elite are especially hated by cheap and dishonest merchants, who sometimes will even put up signs saying no Visa Infinite.
 
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MacRumors said:
Apple has not been happy with Goldman Sachs because of customer service issues caused by long wait times for disputed Apple Card transactions and savings account withdrawals.
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I've had need for only one of such (ACt), and Representatives from both sides were completely Professional. Each communicated reciprocally, and guided me to satisfactory Resolution.
 
dominiongamma said:
You have a great point and I did not think about that because I always wanted to shop there and did not have a visa credit card lol
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We have Visa debit cards, so when we stopped at a Costco recently to get a membership, we used that. But we found when ordering online you can use both Visa and MasterCard. Since we live 2 1/2 hours from the nearest Costco, we mostly shop online.
 
Visa would be my preference. Goldman really wanted this relationship, but being new to the retail sector, they got in way over their heads.
 
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splifingate said:
AMEX is just a "higher-rate" service to most....
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I've had Amex cards (personal and business) for a very long time. Their customer support is by far the best out there. On the many occasions I've had my personal card skimmed (always in New Jersey, where you can't pump your own gas), Amex has arranged to get a new card in my hands, and auto-updated ApplePay on my devices to the new card instantly. When PayPal wouldn't live up to their terms of service (when a vendor failed to send the product I'd bought), Amex covered it without question. As for the higher fees charged to merchants, when we take credit cards in my business through Stripe, we pay the same for Visa, Mastercard, Discover and Amex, with a rate less than 3%.
 
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Apple strives for great customer experience. Amex is the golden standard for customer experience.

Plus, Apple Card is not a travel card. So doesn’t matter if it’s not taken outside of USA.
 
btrach144 said:
Apple strives for great customer experience. Amex is the golden standard for customer experience.

Plus, Apple Card is not a travel card. So doesn’t matter if it’s not taken outside of USA.
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Donald, please keep quiet. The rest of the world would be delighted to have Apple Card. Or should the rest of the world not have Apple products? The Chinese made ones.
 
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ds10 said:
I've had Amex cards (personal and business) for a very long time. Their customer support is by far the best out there. On the many occasions I've had my personal card skimmed (always in New Jersey, where you can't pump your own gas), Amex has arranged to get a new card in my hands, and auto-updated ApplePay on my devices to the new card instantly. When PayPal wouldn't live up to their terms of service (when a vendor failed to send the product I'd bought), Amex covered it without question. As for the higher fees charged to merchants, when we take credit cards in my business through Stripe, we pay the same for Visa, Mastercard, Discover and Amex, with a rate less than 3%.
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I've used 'em all, and AMEX has always been the most-present.

I remember a situation a handful of years-ago when I initiated repeated transactions in a (very) short amount of time ( AMEX called me within a handful of minutes to verify the correctness of the situation).

*kudos* for this.
 
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DblHelix said:
What countries have low Amex acceptance. I’ve never had an issue with it travel internationally 3-4 times a year. Most recently used Amex at a doner shop in Barcelona.
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and, i dont know what the actual percentage is in Japan, but i feel confident in saying that amex is accepted "almost everywhere" in japan, as well. not just international/hotel types of places.

if apple can afford to play a long game on this, an amex+apple partnership rolled out worldwide as expeditiously as possible would be the best of all three networks. amex is a natural fit for apple. and it expands apple pay/apple card abroad exponentially.
if apple choses visa, visa would commoditise it and not give it proper recognition within the visa empire. not too much more market share can be gained that what it has already.
 
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I have too many unused cards (especially Visa) as it is and was thinking of dropping the Apple Card that I never use, if not for the hit to my credit score.
 
I wonder if they're going to require a new credit check, forcing me to unlock my transunion account yet again. And will I get the same credit limit? And will they offer the same cash back incentive?
 
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Spokeyourname said:
I use my platinum amex for just about everything, and use my Apple Card when I'm somewhere amex isn't accepted. A lot of the smaller stores, my wife's nail salon, and international locations don't like AMEX. They have the highest fee to the retailer. So hoping visa wins this one or I'll most likely never use my Apple Card again.
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Genuine question - why would you use Amex Platinum for all your purchases, when you only get 1x on your everyday purchases? The only real use case for Platinum is travel purchase at 5x, otherwise, you can earn so much more points using better cards.
 
tominco said:
I have too many unused cards (especially Visa) as it is and was thinking of dropping the Apple Card that I never use, if not for the hit to my credit score.
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You'll only get hit if dropping the card lowers your overall credit to the point that your credit liability is more than 30% of your overall credit. But pay those cards enough to get you below that 30% level, and your credit score will rise again in a few months. It's a non-issue unless you're buying a big ticket item and you need financing; which really is not the end of the world.

If you pay off every month in full, this is not an issue.

If you do like I do and don't have/use credit cards, it's even less of an issue. I probably don't even have a credit score by now.

I love being debt free. Although it hurts to pay the high price-tag of any AAPL devices on my debit card (through Apple-Pay, of course). But that's why I'm debt free; I'm allergic to spending money, ESPECIALLY if it's on credit.
 
What does the fact that Visa and Amex are willing to bribe pay $100m for the Apple Card business tell us? That card payment networks are making far too much money on transaction fees!
 
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Due to situations not able to be discussed in this thread, the first word in the name of one of the two companies vying for the business will be enough to turn off many potential clients, should the Apple Card ever go international.
 
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I was considering Apple Card years ago because of the Goldman Sachs partnership, but the card simply did not offer the same benefits compared to competitors.
 
UltimaKilo said:
I was considering Apple Card years ago because of the Goldman Sachs partnership, but the card simply did not offer the same benefits compared to competitors.
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Interesting as some did not consider the card due to Apple getting in bed with such an unethical and despicable company. Financial crisis of 2008 ring any bells?
 
Anyplace that accepts credit cards accepts Visa. Not the case with Amex as others have said - and particularly overseas.
If JP Morgan Chase is the issuer, another plus is that you can get certain services in brick and mortar Chase Bank locations. For example, I have a Chase Visa but no Chase accounts, but just got some Euros for an upcoming trip at a local Chase bank branch since the Chase Visa (United Airlines) makes me a Chase "customer".
 
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