All the businesses that surprisingly don't accept Amex cards - including Greggs and Sky
What businesses do not accept Amex?
Most popular businesses and retailers accept Amex payments - but there are a few that don't.
American Express Company - more commonly known as Amex - is a credit card provider that operates across the majority of countries across the world including the UK. Amex is most well known for its credit cards. However, what makes them different to other bank and building societies is that Amex processes your transactions itself. Other banks and building societies usually use payment processors such as Visa or Mastercard, while Amex uses its own network.
This means it can charge its own fees to process its transactions, which can be higher than other options on the market. The National Retail Federation says the average fee to accept a credit card is around 2%, but Amex and other premium cards can charge fees of up to 4%. This is usually the reason why some businesses and retailers won’t accept American Express.
Recently the secondhand sales website eBay announced that it would no longer accept the payment method from August and blamed the move on its "unacceptably high fees". However, it should be noted that a lot of smaller independent businesses do accept Amex as the company offers perks for these businesses to sign up - including marketing and business growth training.
The good news is that the majority do accept Amex payments including all of the UK's major supermarkets including Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, and Aldi. Again the majority of high street retailers such as H&M, Next, and New Look also accept it as well as mainstream restaurants such as Nandos, Pizza Express, and McDonald's. Even certain Government departments accept the method including the DVLA.
However, even though there are many, there are always a few. Here we have listed a handful of UK businesses, retailers and Government Departments which do not accept Amex as a payment method. Some of these include:
- Arriva
- National Express
- Stagecoach
- Sky
- Virgin Media
- Greggs
- Poundstretcher
- Home Bargains
- Decathlon
- Deichmann
- UK Passport Office
- eBay
Amex has a full list of retailers and businesses that accept the credit card brand on its website. If you are unsure, you should ask before paying and have a backup payment method such as a VISA or Mastercard credit/debit card or cash with you.