OT FOAK, an American Express question.

That's how the UK office works, and probably the US too, but not here.
Something to do with Swiss finance law meaning the card must be tied
to an individual, I've been told, although I suspect that may be just
an excuse.

Heh. Thankfully I'm not a cost centre owner, but my wife is in a
similar situation, although I suspect her budget is perhaps slightly
larger (think tens of millions). Even so, she has to do her expenses
in just the same way... or rather, she throws all her receipts and the
amex bill at her admin and gets her to do it.

Another option, with Switzerland, is simply to leave a business card
in the shop or restaurant, and they'll then just send the bill to that
address. Jude's team members do it all the time, to avoid having to
pay and make the expenses claim themselves; it also means it comes out
of an overall budget, rather than being listed as travel or
entertaining expenses, which can be handy, I'm told.

All of which reminds me, I must get round to claiming for the trip I
made in October...

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (b.rogers at ifrance.com)
\`\ | /`/ DS#8 BOTAFOT#3 SbS#2 UKRMMA#13 DFV#8 SKA#2 IBB#10
`\\ | //'
`\|/`
`

 

That's how ours works too..

The advantage of the corporate card seems to be it takes about 8 weeks
for us to get billed from the point of expenditure, so my expense claims
go in within a week of spending, I'm credited the following week, money
sits in my bank acount for a few more weeks, then is taken by amex.

Far too sensible, our bean counters would froth at the mouth over that.

 

About the same, yes. I don't think you'd have a problem
with a MC instead of a Visa, as most stores that take
one will take the other.

Not really. It's an extra system that the store has
to pay for, and if they can cover 95% of the market
with a combined Visa Mastercard system, then there's
not much incentive.

Having said that, and despite what some others have
posted, I've not had any trouble with the Amex credit
card that I have and use. I've used it both online
and in stores - I recently bought a washing machine
from Comet with it - without any hassle. There are
some places that don't take Amex though, but then
I have both a Mastercard and Visa should I need them
instead.

The main reason for having the Amex is that I get
airmiles (for Virgin) with it and so I use it to pay
my expenses (inc hotel bill) while in the States and
get the points for it. As the company then reimburses
the money before the card charges interest, I get
the free airmiles, which can mount up to quite a lot.
We always fly Virgin (company deal) so it helps boost
the points on my frequent flyer account, otherwise I
would have chosen a cashback card.

 

They do - I had one. It's called (or was) Amex Blue. I got rid of it
(had it for corporate reasons) when I realised that no-one in the UK
seemed to accept it.

Phil

 

I use MS for my Mastercard too. And ignore all the 'upgrade' offers to
their new one (i24? something like that - the letters get shredded
immediately).

We pay ours off every month. Which is probably why they want us to
upgrade (and went through a patch of boosting my credit limit every
month until it's now about 4x my regular monthly spend)

Cheryl is wanting to get an <shudder> Asda credit card because they
give you 2p/litre discount at the Asda petrol stations. I'm trying to
resist it as long as possible.

Phil.

 

Well, the Amex card I've got is a charge card paid off every month in
full. Mebbe it's different in the UK.

 

Good man!

 

That's just the UK. I've never had any probs in paying by Amex
anywhere else in Europe. Even my local supermarket accepts them now.

 

I bet you've been waiting ages to say that.

 

Same for me. It's a right PITA in that respect. That's the main reason
I have an Amex card, as it's easier for me to manage work related
expenses (and the air miles of course).

Apparently my company is going to require that we take on corporate
Amex cards soon which will still be deducted off my own account. They
can go **** right off.

 

I wonder if that's only a UK thing?

Why?

 

I dunno what it means.

 

Colin Irvine says...

Life's too short to proof read Usenet

HTH

 

Indeed. But since I live in (and rarely leave nowadays) the UK it was
kind of important to me..

Phil

 

It did, although my first reaction was "cheeky **** - why doesn't he
just tell me!".

I'm obliged.

 

Possibly. And may have changed now (it came out of a conversation about
why a vendor wouldn't accept Amex Blue in the short time I had one).

Expensive (far more so than any other card I have had) and not widely
used in the UK.

Phil