Well, that didn't take long.

[randomness]

It's less than three weeks from the day Costco announced they were ending their exclusive arrangement with AmEx to today's announcement that they will begin accepting Visa.

From the Wall Street Journal:

"Starting April 1, 2016, Visa will be the only brand accepted at Costco. In addition, Costco will partner with Citi to issue a new co-branded card to replace an existing AmEx-Costco card."

Comments

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

I am not surprised. AmEx is really struggling lately. JetBlue is giving them the boot as well.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Article is paywalled.

I wonder what they're going to do with the existing base of Costco AmEx cardholders. Do I get a regular Amex account, plus whatever newfangled thing Costco issues?

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Ah, sorry about that. I got there via this link from Google News. It might work for you, or you might have to search Google News for "Amex Costco" and find the link for the WSJ article "Costco Names Citi, Visa as New Credit Partners".

You might not want to bother but I thought I'd offer.

It doesn't actually say what AmEx will do for their current cardholders. I assume I'll get another AmEx card without a Costco link, which I don't particularly need.

(ETA: I'm sure both AmEx and Costco--and probably Citi as well--will be in touch as April 2016 approaches.)

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. And yeah, I probably don't need an AmEx, myself.

[merlinofchaos]

I have both AmEx and Citi cards, so I guess nothing really changes. But as time has passed, I've actually moved more and more toward the AmEx as my primary, in part because it's the only one I can use at Costco and I do a LOT of shopping at Costco.

I guess this means my poor AmEx will get pushed a bit to the side, though it had the better cashback options than my Citi card.

Also I'd been not using my Citi card because they pissed me off a few years ago, sufficiently that I went looking for a replacement. I don't remember what they did, though. I think it was the automatic fraud shutdown that left me without a working CC in Europe because I didn't tell them in advance I was traveling.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Huh. Well I've got visa; that is helpful. Or actually it is debit, so it is essentially the same

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Costco accepts most debit cards, including most of the ones with MasterCard or Visa affiliation. That won't be changing.