I’ve had an American Express credit card for a couple years now, but I would only use it several times a year, and only when shopping at Costco. (Costco doesn’t accept any other credit cards, and the reason why I didn’t go there very often in the first place was because I was mooching off my parents’ Costco membership.) Well, I finally broke down and bought my own membership in my name, and at the same time I signed up for a new American Express card linked to my Costco account. (It’s a rewards card, and they give you $25 just for signing up, so why not?)
Anyway, the new card came in the mail today, so I went online to activate it, as per the instructions. Activation went fine, but there was some kind of problem linking the new card to my existing online account. I called up customer service (at 1:00 a.m., no less), and spoke to a human almost immediately. Furthermore, the customer service rep was a native speaker of English (hooray!), and after asking me a couple questions, she had everything linked up in about a minute. Problem solved.
This has not been my experience when dealing with customer service for any of the Visa cards I’ve had in the past, nor with any of my current Visa cards. Without a doubt, I have to wait at least 5-10 minutes, I can barely understand the rep’s English, and he always tries to upsell me on some credit check or insurance policy. No thanks. In contrast, the American Express rep was coherent, efficient, and only helped me with the problem I called about.
Maybe I’ll start using my new American Express card everywhere from now on.