Hello guys,
I may ask a question that has already been discussed in other posts, yet, surfing the forum I could not find an answer to it.
Is the migros credit card equal to a UBS or CS credit card?
is fully accepted, for instance, when renting a car?
Which major differences, a part from being cheaper, are there?
What about the various insurances proposed by the UBS or CS Vs the migros one?
It’s a normal credit card and as such accepted where credit cards are accepted.
What matters is the processing network (here, Visa, which is the most accepted one worldwide for credit cards) and the fact that it is a regular credit card (as opposed to a debit card or a prepaid credit card).
So, as stated by Sandro, no difference other than design with another Visa from another bank, except for the fees (including forex), reward program and insurances.
As for insurances, they differ from card to card and should be checked individually. I personally prefer to buy my insurances as a dedicated product and use my credit card as a mean to pay for things on credit. It may be slightly more expensive at times but it ensures that I only get what I truly need and helps avoid some traps set up by the financial industry, as well as making my life simpler.
I was recently forced to buy extra insurance from a car rental place abroad that complained my card (swisscard) was not backed by a real bank, so the question is valid. I am thinking myself to get a free migros bank account and its free credit card for this reason.
Interesting, never heard this argument before.
In the end, why should a company care what kind of institute is backing a credit card? Doesn’t Visa or Mastercard or Amex act as a guarantor of the money? I mean, even if there is a real bank backing a credit card, the company still has no idea if this bank is in good standing.
Maybe it was just a trick to make @Giff pay for an additional, unnecessary, unwanted insurance?
I wouldn’t be surprised considering all the bad things car rental companies usually do.
But I would love to know more about what happened to be prepared to argue with them if they try this trick.
A couple of years ago a car rental in the US rejected my UBS credit card, claiming it was from an online bank, not from a real bank. Some car rentals are just terrible and they are violating Mastercard/Visa contracts.
Yes, that’s what I think too.
Their T&C pine print says “The following cards are not accepted as a security deposit: Maestro, prepaid cards, PayPal, revolving cards, debit cards, and all cards issued by non-bank online accounts managed by payment or electronic money institutions (e.g., Revolut, Bunq BV, etc.).” but I only could read that once I got to the counter, the online broker only showed me "Dieses Unternehmen akzeptiert keine Prepaid-, wiederaufladbaren oder virtuellen Kreditkarten sowie Karten ohne geprägte (erhabene) Zeichen auf der Vorderseite."
I paid more for the extra insurance than for the car, still too little money to do anything about it, besides, maybe, get a credit card that would work in a similar situation.
Wow
How do they even define what a real bank is?
Swisscard used to be an American Express Crédit Suisse joint venture, UBS got rid of its share and it’s now 100% belonging to AmEx Switzerland.
A credit card can’t really get more real than that. Why would a business care about how you settle you credit card bill, whether it’s at a physical or online bank? They have no way to know that information anyway.
Rejecting debit and prepaid cards can arguably make sense, as you typically can’t put a hold for more than one week, and clawing money back after the car is returned can be impossible if you emptied you account in the meantime.
However, it doesn’t matter who issued a credit card, as long as the limit is high enough and the payment plus deposit hold clear.
Just checked my cards. Neither Cembra (Certo One) nor Migros Bank (Visa Cumulus) fulfill this criteria. Swisscard does.
This is also a nonsensical and outdated practice as many premium credit cards don’t have embossed numbers on the front anymore. Generally the PAN will soon go away, first from physical cards and then entirely with Click to Pay.
Both Revolut and bunq have proper banking licenses.
While I’m not sure how/which entity Revolut uses to issue their cards, I’m pretty sure bunq does as a bank.
bs.
I have had a credit card without embossing issued by a 170-year old brick & mortar bank, and it’ll expire later this year. So it’s a couple of years old.
Acceptance is usually not the issue anymore, the annoying differences show up when something goes wrong, chargebacks, insurance claims, limits, support speed. Nobody cares whose logo issued the card until the rental company blocks 2k and your app starts thinking 