I looked this up in the search, but did not find it. Sorry if this is repeticious.
What is the difference between a Master Card and a Visa?
They are different companies. That’s all.
Any differences in the services their cards offer depends on the bank that issues them.
They’re credit cards.
The important thing to look at is your spending habits. Do you pay off at the end of the month? Do you carry a balance?
Choose the issuer that carrier that has the terms most agreeable to you.
Just to add: I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a business that would accept one, but not the other. If they take credit cards at all, they’ll take both MC and Visa. AmEx and Discover are another story, of course.
If you are outside of the US, it’s a different story. Some places only take MasterCard or Visa.
Try visa.com & mastercard.com & compare services…this is a broad question with no small answer.
Oh, one notable difference for the merchants is that frequently the percentage skim to accept one versus the other is different.
When I inquired about accepting credit cards, I was informed that VISA had one rate, MC had another very similar, but slightly different, rate and that Discover had a slightly higher rate, and American Express had a different, and obnoxiously higher, rate.
It was something like 1.65% or so for VISA/MC, 1.9% for Discover, and 2.3% for Amex.
Warning: above numbers MAY be wrong, this was over a year ago.
And I think that there may have also been a thirty-five cent fee per transaction, on top of the above-mentioned skim rates.
So the next time you see a place doesn’t take American Express… you know one of the reasons. .6% of each purchase doesn’t seem like much, but if the business is a low profit margin one to begin with, that would hurt.
I wound up staying with cash and checks because this was a low-volume business, and I wanted to avoid signing long-term contracts, which is something all the companies and banks prepared to help me accept credit cards were intent on making me do.
Costco takes only American Express I believe (or is it Discover?)
The only way to use a Visa logoed card is if it also can function as an ATM card.
I don’t know if this is still true, but at one time Sams’ Club would only take Discover. Why?
Incredible that Costco only takes AmEx (that’s correct.) One would think they would lose hordes of business that way.
The last time I was in Sam’s, about two months ago, they only took Discover so I assume it’s still true. I like Discover personally, because you can deal directly with Discover instead of through another bank. Visa and Mastercard issue through other banks, so the quality of the customer service can vary DRAMATICALLY!
Because Wal-Mart (Sam’s Club) has apparently worked out a deal with Sears, Roebuck, and Co.* (Discover/Novus) for preferential rates. Discover charges Sam’s a lower than usual rate, but makes it up on volume, since they have the exclusive rights in Sam’s.
- Discover was created by Sears, but it may have been placed under Dean Witter while Sears owned that outfit and left Sears when Dean Witter (now Morgan Stanley Dean Witter) was spun off. I haven’t followed the ownership of Discover really closely.
I have no information on the Costco/AmEx connection, but I will note that AmEx is a charge card, not a credit card and CostCo is a “cash” business. My guess would be that either the lack of revolving credit in both types of payment is part of their financial strategy or that CostCo and AmEx have a common owner. (Does CostCo accept AmEx’s Optima (credit) card?)
Yup. Costco will accept any of the AmEx cards, even the no-fee ones. They also have a no-fee co-branded Costco/AmEx card that they’ll be happy to tell you all about.
Costco used to only accept Discover. It has involved some sort of agreement between the companies, and it was quite the coup for AmEx to wrest the exclusive business away from Discover.
Also, both Costco and Sam’s take debit cards as well as checks. And if you’ve ever been there on a Saturday afternoon you know that they’re not hurting for business.
Discover does not have exclusive rights in Sam’s. I know this only too well because a Sam’s cashier ripped off our VISA card number and put $400 through on it. To their credit, Wal*Mart was very helpful in resolving the situation.
This might not be true about Europe in general, but here in Norway, major credit cards are not always accepted.
Hotels, restaurants, typical tourist traps generally support major American cards.
But good luck getting your American card to work in supermarkets, grocery dealers, 7-Eleven, or a surprising number of other kinds of shops, even those selling relatively expensive stuff (shoes, computer equipment, telephony). Such stores also usually don’t support credit cards, only debit cards.
Stores are all wired to the national online bank system, called Bank Axept. (All Norwegian banks issue Visa cards with a part of the magnetic strip dedicated to Bank Axept support.) Stores generally accept Visa only as a secondary payment method, if the Bank Axept part fails mechanically somehow (eg., the magnetic strip is damaged), presumably because they want to avoid the Visa surcharge if possible.
Case in point: As part of my employment contract, I had for a while an American Visa company credit card, and it worked almost nowhere except in restaurants and certain ATMs.
The reason for this discrepancy is, I believe, the relative expensiveness of Visa/Mastercard/AmEx transactions. I once complained to a computer dealer about their lack of Mastercard support, and he told me Mastercard insisted on a 20% slice of the transaction. Insane, but apparently true.
I’d just like to interject the reason AMEX has such an obnoxiously high transaction fee is because they offer AWESOME benifets to the user. Get an AMEX card and read the user agreement. You wouldn’t believe what AMEX will do for you. Broke something in 60 days? AMEX will return you the money if you simply ship it to them. Store wont accept returns? AMEX will. Find a lower price elsewhere? AMEX BVG(certain cards, and soon to be castrated =( ) will pay you the difference.
As a person who once worked in accounting I can tell you Amex fights TOOTH AND NAIL for their customers. If you dispute something they go to bat for you hook, line and sinker.
Visa and MC are like “Oh who cares”
We have the Costco AMEX card. It is a credit card not a charge card. It is the Platinum one which gets you room upgrades at a lot of hotels for no extra charge and some other services that my wife likes. It also has a somewhat decent rebate. If you get the card through Costco there is no yearly AMEX fee. If you don’t get the card through Costco it used to be something like $200 a year.
I think that Costco got the deal they liked from AMEX and switched for Discover.
A week ago, I lost my Visa card. I had had it 11 years. I reported it to the credit card company, explained it to them and asked them to change my account to the kind that is on the tv every night. I had never defalted on a payment, and in the last 2 years, have paid off the balance each month. They refused. They said I had originally negotiated for an annual fee and a higher interest rate. I told them to cancel my card. It has been my only credit card.
The day I tried to use my card and found it gone, Sears opened a Master Card for me. I do did not want 2 credit cards, so that nothing gets out of hand.
When I called the Visa company, to tell them I lost the cared, I told them I had gotten a Sears Master Card and was willing to transfer the balance to a new account and I would close my Master Card. They told me that Visas were the best and somehow insured better than Master Card, and it would ruin my good credit to switch after so many years with them. Obviously, I did not understand all they said. Prabably because I was so irritated with them. Now my Visa account is closed and I have a New Master card.
This mess has made me ask the question about the 2 cards. I can hardly believe the Visa company would let me close my account with them completely, rather than keep a good customer and work with their request.
Have never seen anywhere in Australia or New Zealand that takes only M/C or Visa but not both.