[uzakov]

I think situation in 2021 is very different in London: AMEX is accepted nearly everywhere in central London (Even on markets etc), there are ofc some shops that don't take it but generally AMEX is widely accepted.

Re: Mastercard

It seems that Mastercard is more widespread among "hot" banking startups, ie I can create virtual debit Mastercards on Revolut and Monzo

[blowski]

I'd like to see some stats on that. My own experience is much closer to that of the OP.

[em10fan]

Other than some occasional small restaurants/pubs, and a few small indie shops, its basically accepted everywhere here in Edinburgh, I have a corporate amex and use it for expensing business dinners very often, and supplies from office shops, supermarkets, etc..

[blowski]

I used to have a corporate Amex, and it was a nightmare to use it in London. Even in places that said they accepted it, when I attempted to pay the card reader rejected it. That was about 5 years ago, maybe times have changed - it would be great to see data rather than a mixture of anecdotes.

[david_allison]

Was your card Chip & PIN? Didn't have a problem with my British-issued Amex in London 5 years ago.

[Macha]

Yeah, my success rate for the corporate Amex in Europe is 70-80% which means the remaining time I need to fill out more tedious paperwork to get reimbursed to my personal card. The US based finance team continue to insist its much better now, but a 20-30% failure rate is too high

[pishpash]

Amex has gone the lower-fee route on some cards in recent years. Visa, with Visa Signature, may be going the other way.

[uzakov]

AMEX now has fee-free cards, which afaik still offer cashback and offers

[hocuspocus]

> It seems that Mastercard is more widespread among "hot" banking startups, ie I can create virtual debit Mastercards on Revolut and Monzo

They were definitely first in this space but Revolut has issued Visa's (in some cases) for a while now, and for instance Wise has recently switched from MasterCard to Visa entirely.