# American Express credit card

20 Hacker News commenters recommended American Express credit card and 25 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend Amex for dispute resolution, fraud alerts, and strong customer service, and for rewards on dining and travel. Common caveat: merchants often refuse it, with acceptance varying by country.

## Why people recommend it

- Disputes resolved in cardholder's favor (4 comments): "I've personally had at least three disputes this year resolved in my favor by American Express" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48208958)) "the ability to reverse the charge with Amex" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48750096)) "If I dispute, I get my money back." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47192000))
- Helpful, flexible customer service (3 comments): "Amex were the only one that contacted me and told me they'd detected something weird in the signup." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48592627)) "Amex is nice about allowing someone who charged you in the past" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48476810)) "they happily refunded me anyway" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48389849))
- Widely accepted in the US (2 comments): "I genuinely cannot recall a single instance where I was unable to obtain payment auth in a grocery store using Visa or Amex." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50165470)) "legitimately can't remember any place in the US where it wasn't accepted" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46433888))
- Rewards and insurance perks (2 comments): "They also offer all kinds of niche insurance options that are effectively even better" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46037350)) "2 Aeroplan pts/$ for dining on Amex" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47249395))

## What people warn about

- Merchants often refuse or limit acceptance (4 comments): "acceptance varies from pretty good (e.g. germany) to pretty awful" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46961682)) "Amex is regularly rejected by businesses and cannot be your only credit card" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48209368)) "I found AmEx accepted maybe 50% of the time, if not less." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46976952))
- Fees and merchant costs seem high (3 comments): "I agree that they are a cartel tax on the economy, but their costs are higher than that." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45840131)) "they take a cut that is easily double or triple of what Visa and Mastercard take" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46145744)) "letting a company like Amex siphon up to 3% of your income away in perpetuity" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46971902))
- Cards blocked or closed without warning (3 comments): "American Express just canceled my wife’s card after 15 years because she didn’t fill in her salary data." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47658362)) "blocks the card when I try to buy dinner that night in that same hotel due to fraud detection" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48592557)) "Amex got spooked and abruptly closed both my never-late accounts with them" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48948679))
- Clunky tech and login hassles (3 comments): "American Express tech is some of the worst in the world among big companies." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48592434)) "Amex forces sms/email 2fa to login on my graphene phone" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47706146)) "the email itself had a "login" button right in the top" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49126802))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Apple Card](https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-card.md): 27 recommend
- [Discover it cashback credit card](https://hackerapproved.com/p/discover-card.md): 8 recommend
- [Robinhood Gold Card](https://hackerapproved.com/p/robinhood-gold-card.md): 7 recommend
- [Chase Sapphire credit card](https://hackerapproved.com/p/chase-sapphire-reserve.md): 7 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://www.americanexpress.com/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "American Express credit card", https://hackerapproved.com/p/american-express/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).