Credit cards in comparison ᐅ American Express, Mastercard and Visa (2023)

the essentials in brief

• When comparing the three major credit card systems, the conditions of the respective house bank are particularly important. OnlyAmerican Expressis independent of this and makes its own offers.
• If you want to shop with a credit card, you will find the most merchants worldwide with Visa and Mastercard. American Express, on the other hand, has significantly fewer acceptance points.
• However, American Express scores with fair default interest.

Anyone who travels abroad or frequently shops online is increasingly asked for a credit card. With the big car rental companies, nothing works without it for a long time. More and more customers are looking for the best type of card, the most attractive offers. The most popular are Visa and Mastercard, which are only issued through commercial banks. The traditional brandAmerican Express (Amex)however, deals their cards themselves.

AComparisonthis makes it complicated. While Amex arranges the costs, additional services, benefits and all conditions for its cards itself, this is done by the respective bank with which the customer has his current account with Visa and Mastercard. This means that the diversity is hardly manageable. It therefore makes sense to check which of the two systems is most attractive for personal needs:Amexor a Mastercard or Visa card.

The advantages of Amex

• Amex offers four different credit cards to serve a wide range of customer milieus: a fee-free blue card for the cost-conscious, a green card for 60 euros per year and a gold card for 140 euros an annual fee. High-status customers can carry the Platinum Card in their wallet for EUR 720 a year.

• The numerous additional services are popular with Amex, such as a bonus program on sales, numerous insurance policies, especially for travel, and discounts for golf courses. The extent of the add-ons varies with the respective card model.

• With its tradition and image, American Express guarantees a certain elegance and makes the cards interesting for customers who like something special.

• When it comes to interest on arrears, Amex demonstrates down-to-earth fairness. All cards are charged 5 percentage points above the base interest rate. It is not uncommon for other providers to reach rates well above the ten percent mark.

• In principle, Amex does not make costly partial payments for card charges, while other providers often only have a part of the invoice amount automatically settled by default. After that, the customers have to become active themselves in order to compensate for the entire minus amount. If the deadlines are missed, there is an expensive delay in payment, which is charged with high interest rates.

The cons of Amex

• The decisive disadvantage is the relatively small number of acceptance points. Amex itself does not give an exact figure. However, Amex is far behind Visa and Mastercard. But Amex is expanding its network and increasing the number of merchants that accept it.

• If you want to withdraw cash from an ATM on the go, you have to be able to use it sparingly. Because cash is tight. Depending on the card model, only between 750 and 1,500 euros can be withdrawn each week.

• For withdrawing money from ATMs, Amex charges a fee of 4 percent, at least 5 euros. Here the competition is often cheaper.

The pros and cons of Visa and Mastercard

• Visa and Mastercardoffer according to their own statements a worldwide network with more than 70 million acceptance points. Users can therefore expect these cards to be used almost everywhere, even on long-distance journeys.

• The limits for withdrawing cash from ATMs are extremely different and diverse for Visa Card and Mastercard. They are set by the issuing banks and are often higher than withAmex. With the Visa Card from Comdirect, for example, up to 600 euros can be withdrawn daily from ATMs in Germany and abroad.

• Visa and Mastercard are no slouch when it comes to additional services either. Travel insurance, discounts and bonus programs are available to varying degrees, but this always depends on the respective bank and cannot be mapped across the board.

• In the event of loss, theft or fraud, i.e. if strangers use the credit card for transactions without authorization, Visa and Mastercard assume the damage in full. Amex charges its customers a deductible of 50 euros.

• One disadvantage of the two can hardly be overlooked: there is no overview of most conditions. To do this, customers would have to laboriously compare the numerous individual offers from the banks.

• Likewise, the often high interest on arrears of more than 10 percent speak against many Visa and Mastercard offers. This is especially true when the offering bank automatically stops partial payments, so that interest on arrears is charged on the remaining amounts.

The credit card models from Amex, Visa and Mastercard

For penny pinchers, the choice is large.Free credit cardsare available from Visa, Mastercard and also from Amex. The Amex Blue Card even includes a starting credit of 45 euros and additional insurance cover for traffic accidents. In addition, it remains with the pure payment functions.

But for the same annual fee, namely zero euros, there are more with some other providers. Advanzia and TF Bank offer a Gold class card for 140 euros a year at Amex free of charge. But all that glitters is not gold.

Toll-free gold cards aren't always a bargain

The toll-freeMastercard Gold der Advanzia Bankhas already been rated as "good" in the ranking of FMH financial advice for the Handelsblatt. Compared to all Amex cards, it scores most clearly with the waiver of fees for cash withdrawals. That's a lot anyway.

But everything else remains vague. Even reading the fine print of the terms and conditions does not make it clear what an “interest-free payment term for purchases” is. There is a lot of text, but little information that is easy to understand. Transparency doesn't seem to be the strong point here.

Things are looking better at TF Bank. She also offers themMastercard GoldToll-free. Numerous conditions are openly visible on the homepage. There are also no fees for withdrawing cash.

There is also a package for travel insurance: travel health insurance, travel cancellation insurance, travel interruption insurance, baggage insurance, flight and baggage delay insurance, personal liability insurance abroad and accident insurance. It almost comes close to the range of services offered by the Amex Gold, which costs 140 euros – at least at first glance.

But the TF Bank card does not have to be a bargain. Anyone who cannot balance their sales for more than 51 days will be charged fat default interest: 24.79 percent on goods purchases and cash transactions. And the pretty insurance package often remains just a chimera. Because it only applies if at least 50 percent of the total travel price is paid by credit card.

The Visa Card from Barclay also appears attractive, although without "gold" in the name, but free of charge.

With this card, the use of ATMs worldwide is free of charge. But when it comes to debit interest, Barclays asks its customers to pay 23.13 percent. A simple concept for free, as long as you keep a close eye on your sales. But it's not enough for demanding trips.

Amex has cheap competitors

Frequently asked questions about credit cards