Is American Express Better Than Visa Or Mastercard? (2024)

You may think American Express’ presence in Canada is fairly recent but you’d be wrong. American Express came to Canada in 1853 and opened offices in Toronto and Hamilton. Today, it employs about 1,600 Canadians and is known as Amex Canada Inc. and Amex Bank of Canada.

What makes American Express different from Visa and Mastercard is that it is both a credit card issuer and a credit card network. It also has higher interchange or swipe fees than its competitors. Plus, it’s not accepted at as many places as Visa or Mastercard.

Now, when it comes to the different types of cards, Amex sets itself apart by focusing on high income applicants with stellar credit histories. Their credit score requirements start at good/excellent, which begins at 721 and up. It’s also the only card issuer that has charge cards that have to be paid off in full each month.

Global Acceptance and Convenience

When it comes to acceptance, there’s very little difference between each credit card network in North America. Retailers and other vendors accept Amex cards at almost the same rate as Visa and Mastercard. However, Visa is the slight front-runner in terms of acceptance and seems to have the lead with 52% of the U.S. market compared to Mastercard’s 24%.

Amex still trails behind in the international markets. According to Merchant Machine, Amex is popular in the UK, China and India but the rest of the world favours Visa and Mastercard. So if you’re travelling abroad and have an Amex, take a Visa or Mastercard with you just in case.

Fees and Interest Rates

What sets American Express cards apart is that it issues its own cards—unlike Visa and Mastercard, which are issued by other financial institutions.

While the processing fees among all three credit card networks range from 0.8% to 3.5%, Visa and Mastercard’s fees are lower than Amex’s, which sit at the higher 3% to 3.5%.

• Visa fees: 0.8% to 2.4%
• Mastercard fees: 0.8% to 2.54%
• Amex fees: It depends but there are wholesale discount merchant fees ranging from 1.08% to 2.40%

Interest rates also vary. For Visa and Mastercard, it depends on your financial institution. You can get a credit card with an extremely low interest rate of 12.99% but most credit cards generally sit at 20.99%. The same thing applies for Amex, which also has the American Express Essential^TM Credit Card, which is a specifically low-interest credit card with a 12.99% interest rate. You can avoid paying interest on all credit cards by paying them off every month, but American Express charge cards will charge you 30% annual interest if you carry a balance and they’re not paid off in full each month. That being said, some charge cards do have a FlexPay option which allows you to pay a portion of your balance over time at a more typical credit card interest rate, such as 20.99%.

Rewards and Benefits

Once again, it depends on your credit card and financial institution. For example, if you have a Scotiabank Visa, you would collect either Scene+ points that can be redeemed for a variety of things like (travel, merchandise and movies) or you can opt for cash back. The same applies for Mastercard. TD has TD reward points or Aeroplan points, depending on the card.

Premium Visa and Mastercards also offer more value per dollar for points collection, plus access to perks like airport lounges, travel and medical insurance, telephone insurance, rental car upgrades, free nights at hotels plus room upgrades, etc. All of this depends on the institutions’ relationships with their vendors.

American Express has its own ecosystem of rewards and benefits. What sets it apart is the consistency of the rewards, depending on the level of credit card. It also offers points collection (called Membership Rewards) or cash back, hotel upgrades, travel insurance and lounge access. What it also offers is concierge services and front-of-the-line access that cardholders can use to get restaurant reservations and concert tickets. The more exclusive your card, the more perks you get.

Related: Benefits And Perks Of The Platinum Card From American Express

Travel Insurance Coverage

At the risk of repeating ourselves, you get travel insurance based on the tier of credit card. Lower-tier Visa and Mastercards don’t offer any travel benefits. Middle-tier credit cards like the Visa Signature and Mastercard World series offer travel insurance like trip cancellation, lost luggage, accident insurance and car rental insurance. The premium level of Visa Infinite and World Elite Mastercard have all the travel benefits.

Amex cards also have insurance tiers but all its cards have the basic insurance coverage like a rental car collision/damage waiver, trip delay, trip cancellation and interruption insurance and baggage insurance.

Security Features

All three credit card networks have security features. Visa has identity theft protection, known as Verified by Visa and a zero liability policy which means if someone steals your card and racks up purchases, you may not be liable for it. The same applies for Mastercard which also has a zero liability policy and its own identity theft protection called Mastercard SecureCode. Amex also has fraud protection and you can set up alerts and notifications for your card.

Contactless Payments

No major differences here between any of the cards as they all have contactless payments where you can tap to pay for your purchases. You can also add Amex, Visa and Mastercard to your Google, Samsung or Apple wallets.

Debit Cards

Both Visa and Mastercard have Interac debit cards – take a look at your debit card and you’ll see the Interac logo and the word debt on it. Amex doesn’t have a debit card in Canada but it launched a debit card connecting to a chequing account in the U.S. in 2022.

Each payment network has its own brand names for the tiers of its credit cards.

From the lowest tier to highest, Visa has:

• Visa
• Visa Signature
• Visa Infinite

From the lowest tier to the highest, Mastercard has:

• Mastercard
• Mastercard World
• Mastercard World Elite

Amex doesn’t have clearly defined names for all their top-tier credit cards, but the general rule of thumb is, if it’s just called an American Express card, it’s the lowest level; if it has Preferred in the title, it’s a mid-range card and if it has Platinum, that’s a high-end card. On the furthest end of the spectrum, If it has Black in the name, that’s an ultra-premium, invite-only card.

Visa Card Tiers

Each tier has its own fee, eligibility and benefits. The same applies to the financial institution that issues the card, so while there may be specific network fees eligibility requirements and benefits, the issuing partner likely has some of their own as well

Take a look at how it breaks down:

Mastercard Card Tiers

Just like Visa, each tier has its own fee, eligibility and benefits. The same applies to the institution that issues the card. Shop around to find the right card for you.

American Express Card Tiers

Here’s a rundown of what financial institutions issue which credit card network:

Yes and no. When it comes to travel perks and its perks and benefits ecosystem, American Express does take the lead over Visa and Mastercard. Yet it’s still not as available in Canada or accepted across the globe like the other two. So it really depends on what’s important to you.