If you’re an American Express Credit Card holder, you might already know that your card may get declined by the merchant anytime. Even-though both Online & Offline acceptance of Amex cards has increased a lot in last few years, you may still face the acceptance issue, especially when you try spending offline in non-metro cities.
So if your Amex card has been recently denied for charge, here’s what you can do.
Reporting to American Express
Usually when my Amex card gets declined, I gently ask the guy at billing counter to talk to his manager/owner to enable acceptance of Amex cards.
But if you don’t wish to do that yourself, you can now leave it to AmEx to do all the legwork and hardwork for you.
All you need to do is just simply fill an online form with details of the merchant and Amex will follow up with them to do the needful.
- Go to this Link
- Sit back and hope the card gets accepted on your next visit.
While I’m not sure how fast Amex actually work with the merchant on these cases, I received an acknowledgement mail for one (among many) of the merchants that I reported via above link within ~2 weeks of submitting the form.
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Have you ever called Amex Support to report acceptance issues or used above link before? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments below.
This is not just about acceptance. There are few instances i faced even though they had amex machines/icici/sbi
It was last year where I purchased few appliances for home and the transaction value is 1L in a store located in chennai in Tnagar. They had amex machine and refused to accept as they need 2% additional charge if I proceed with amex transaction. I refused and used HDFC diners club miles for that. I complained the same to CCare.
Second instance, i went to a super market in Chennai at Vadapalani. At the counter, there was an ICICI machine and I gave amex. They refused to accept amex. I told many times that amex works with ICICI and SBI machines. But they didn’t accept and asked for only Visa/Master. I gave second complaint and customer care assured they will mak sure that will not happen again.
Not sure what steps they had taken on this.
Not all icici and sbi terminals are enabled to accept amex.
I was trying to load JioMoney wallet with my AmEx card. But the app was saying that the card no. is invalid. Did anyone else faced this kind of issue?
I tried contacting jio-care, and they told me that their app currently doesn’t supports AmEx cards.
Planet Fashions, District centre Janakpuri, refused to accept amex card. They said, they can’t accept Amax card. So we used other card.
Nope no use. Try amex at railway counter. They deny. Reliance smart doesn’t accept Amex in Kalyan. And they won’t do anything so just relax and use visa or master. I have complained many times but in vain.
Sir lots of shop not accept American Express card what I do?
Just fed up with Amex Acceptance. The Card was not accepted even in Joy Alukkas in Coimbatore. They said they would levy extra charges for using Amex. Same with all the Honda Car showrooms in Chennai.
There issues of acceptance in(Madhyapradesh) Indore and cities around
The acceptance is gradually increasing.
The point is that several shopkeepers have to keep a separate card machine.
Any how big merchant establishments have no problem, but other are hesitant.
This reporting a potential merchant and reporting a merchant who flashes an ‘amex cards welcome’ but declines them has been there since long.
Have used it many times in last 4 years. Sometimes I receive a mail saying merchant was onboarded, most of the time I don’t.
For the second case where the merchant flashes amex accepted logo and didn’t honour, amex usually calls to update the status.
I was hospitalized for heart operation all of a sudden on Christmas but Apollo hospitals refused my Amex card I reported it to the amex representative officially. In February again the same hospital refused during my second treatment.
What Murali says is true – despite many complaints & assurances that the matter has been passed on to their team for follow-up, I have never come across a case where this has worked. A specific case in point – the AMEX card works fine on the IRCTC web site. However, on the official IRCTC app, AMEX is not accepted, only Visa or MasterCard. Despite several complaints over the last couple of years, nothing has changed. A lot of vendors have refused to accept AMEX citing settlement issues or higher rate of transaction fees.
hello sid,
I want to apply for amex card,
i hold itr of 6.5lac self employed business and cibil score 770.
i get in touch with amex offline guy they said they require 8lac itr for platinum card.
Should i go for online application.
will they consider my application on 6.5lac itr.
Thanking you.
reply appreciated.
They would consider it for the gold range of cards.
Go for plat travel card, with some regular spend on the card you should be able to apply for a plat charge card upgrade. I had 1 lakh salary slips and they upgraded
The cases of merchants not accepting Amex is very common. I live in Bangalore and none of the offline stores I frequent accepts Amex. There’s simply no incentive for me to use Amex on amazon since the ICICI Co-branded card gives better rewards. So now, all the points I earn on Amex in an year basically gets spent on paying off the annual fee. I’m holding on to an Amex simply to have a good standing relationship with Amex since they consider your history with them even when you move to a new country and have to start with no credit score.
Guys did you notice Ola app stopped accepting Amex cards for Wallet loading or Trip payments. Silently they have shown Amex the door.
If PayTm stops it would be very severe blow to the Amex card holders since simply put Acceptance is the deal breaker . You don’t want to have a dud 5k/10K Card and embarrass yourself .
Also there’s a practical problem in times I am rushing , the Amex POS machine at holders and stores are somewhere in the drawer , not charged , without the transaction receipt roll in place . It takes time for that single transaction. All that since there are few guys with the Amex card !
It could be some temporary issue. I tried to add Rs.100 to Olamoney wallet via Ola app and it goes through well.
The reason most of the shops do not accept Amex card is the service charge. I asked to 1 shop why don’t you accept Amex card. He said that Amex card charges 5% as service charge from us while VISA/Master card charges only 2%..
Even airindia website or app is not accepting amex card. Such a bad reputation?
One of the major fertility hospital in Chennai don’t acccept Amex. Pathetic.
Amex is effectively an online only card as even in Delhi, the acceptance rate is pathetic. Even big hospitals or shopping chains often don’t accept Amex. The only place where I’ve seen decent Amex Acceptance is Gurgaon… Else, its poor to downright pathetic…
Even the 2 best hospital, No 1 Zydus hospital and no 2 Sterling hospital doesn’t accept it.
So in case of emergency don’t ever expect American Express to come to your help.
American Express takes the customers for the ride ; only for joy ride and if you get hurt or need medical help then you are gonna die because it’s not accepted and hence you need to have other card in your pocket