• Amex cards have serious acceptance issue.
• It is accepted wherever Pine Lab, Paytm swipe machines are there. No issues there.
• Amex is in talk with SBI also to have tieup, so next month onwards, there won’t be any issues with SBI machines also (currently it depends on merchant willingness to Accept Amex cards on SBI machines).
• With HDFC and Axis machines, it depends on the merchant. Some HDFC and Axis Swipe machines, merchants have opted out for Amex cards as Amex charges higher fee to merchants. So, they don’t accept it.
• Another update is that, Amex is coming up with a dedicated drive next month to increase acceptance. This will include following initiatives
• Users will be able to provide details of retailers on Amex app, chat or email, wherever they feel issue with the Amex acceptance. Amex team will reach-out to the merchants to onboard them.
• They are in talk with major banks so that Amex would be accepted on their swipe machines by default.
• They are also considering reduction in merchant fee to drive acceptance.
• In last one year, they have issued large number of Amex cards and have doubled the list of serviceable cities. Higher number of card users naturally increases pressure on merchants to accept the card.
The above is based on my detailed talk with Amex Customer Care executive on acceptance issue. They are promising that the acceptance will drastically improve in next 5-6 months. But let’s see:crossed_fingers:
• For now, 5 out of 10 offline merchants in metro cities like Mumbai are not accepting Amex credit cards, even in malls.
• Right now, best use of Amex card is Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Swiggy, Zomato etc. giftcards, Amex Reward Multiplier and Fuel 
at HPCL.
Post Credit: SpendWisely
Ps: above words are of the original author. My intent was to aware about this news only.