Traveling abroad

[chipbennett]

I'm just thinking about most retailers (brick and mortar and online) that I encounter. They almost exclusively accept Visa and MC.

Perhaps we use a mutually exclusive subset of retailers?

 

[Cameramonkey]

Perhaps we use a mutually exclusive subset of retailers?

And it comes and goes. Menards used to not accept it, but now they do. My local DQ doesnt now. I do notice a handful of retailers (usually small biz now) that wont accept amex. Same with Discover. Some just wont accept it.

And as I said earlier, amex is great, but its not 100% like visa/MC so if ALL you are carrying is one card, amex/discover are horrible choices. And OP's wife would only be carrying one card. I've never seen "sorry, we dont accept Visa" or "sorry, we dont accept MC" ANYWHERE. (cash only places excluded of course)

But its great if you have a preference due to your rewards and can fall back to visa/mc if necessary.

 

[chipbennett]

And it comes and goes. Menards used to not accept it, but now they do. My local DQ doesnt now. I do notice a handful of retailers (usually small biz now) that wont accept amex. Same with Discover. Some just wont accept it.

And as I said earlier, amex is great, but its not 100% like visa/MC so if ALL you are carrying is one card, amex/discover are horrible choices. And OP's wife would only be carrying one card. I've never seen "sorry, we dont accept Visa" or "sorry, we dont accept MC" ANYWHERE. (cash only places excluded of course)

But its great if you have a preference due to your rewards and can fall back to visa/mc if necessary.

This is exactly why I recommended, for a one-card strategy, to go with the Chase Sapphire Reserve/Preferred or a similar card, like CapitalOne Venture.

 

[cosermann]

... I wanted to just add her to my credit card and get her a card with her name on it but apparently Jesus could return tomorrow with that same request and it just couldn't possibly be done. ...

This should be super simple. Is your credit card company giving you a hard time? It's easy peasy with Discover or Citi.