In our opinion, many American Express cards offer great value for Canadians who want to make the most of their travel rewards. But many people still have a very common misperception about the cards: that they are not widely accepted.
Yes, it’s true: American Express cards are a little bit less widely accepted than Visa and Mastercard. But only very slightly (and it’s really not as true as most people think, or as it once was).
The Myth
What if I told you AMEX was accepted at 96,000 locations in Canada? That seems like a lot of places to use an AMEX Card right?
Well in fact… 96,000 is just the number of places that started accepting AMEX in 2018 alone!
It has indeed changed so much! I have been into travel hacking for over 10 years, and even I remember that there were a lot more places that didn’t accept AMEX back then.
Now, even small businesses often accept AMEX. And almost all chain stores accept them, including for small purchases at places like Tim Hortons or at discounters like Walmart and even Dollarama.
For what it’s worth, during the first half of 2019, over 80% of my own personal expenses were on one of my 4 AMEX cards (and it would be even higher if it weren’t for Costco only accepting Mastercards).
Over 80% of expenses is pretty good.
Especially since AMEX Cards offer such valuable benefits. Even *if* they weren’t as widely accepted, I would still recommend many of them for most travellers… but they are accepted at most businesses!
The bottom line is that you can use your AMEX Cards in much more places than you think and earn excellent rewards depending on which cards you choose.
Now that we’ve hopefully debunked the myth that AMEX isn’t widely accepted enough for you to take advantage of the travel benefits, here is a reminder of the best AMEX Cards for most Canadian travellers:
By the way, this is only one of the many myths in the world of travel hacking. We will be covering many others in our new travel hacking section coming soon (you can be the first to know when it launches by signing up to the Flytrippers free travel hacking newsletter).
Summary
As passionate travellers who want you to understand how travel credit cards can help you travel more, we love to debunk the many myths in the world of travel hacking. One that we hear too often is that American Express Cards aren’t widely accepted, but in reality, it is not really the case, and you can definitely take advantage of the cards’ great benefits.
Have any question at all about American Express cards? Ask us in the comments!
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Advertiser Disclosure:
This post was sponsored by Amex Bank of Canada. The views and opinions expressed in this blog, however, are purely our own. Redemption values evoked are also Flytrippers’ own and solely based on our own points valuation estimates as described.
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