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Discover Card accepted

I have always advised here that travellers wanting to pay for things in the UK with a Discover Card will find it difficult if not impossible to use that card here.

Imagine my astonishment just a couple of minutes ago when I was checking opening hours for my favourite Cotswolds bakery and tea rooms, Huffkins, https://huffkins.com/pages/about-us-cotswolds-bakery-cafe-tea-rooms when I saw the list of cards accepted and Discover was right there with all the others. I know a lot of overseas tourists go to Stow on the Wold and Burford, not to say John Lewis Oxford Street, so demand must have driven change.

Wow.

Posted by
2360 posts

Still a pretty abysmal card on the pecking order of acceptable cards while travelling outside the US, right up there with Amex cards, oh those nasty Amex merchant fees.

Posted by
5329 posts

Acceptance in the UK is linked with Diners Club. So mostly food places or hotels, but quite limited.

A Diners Club Card is the one to get out when people say 'American Express is the one card we don't take'.

Posted by
7369 posts

demand must have driven change

Maybe the Discover Card representatives have just done a brilliant job of promoting their product to this business. The card was the first to offer cash-back to card users in the U.S., back in the 1990’s, but their offer was eclipsed long ago by just about every other card company, which offer points, more cash back, etc.

It would be interesting to find out, at the end of this summer, how many Discover cards Huffkins rang up, and maybe also the average transaction amount, compared with all the other plastic.

Posted by
32793 posts

Is Discover still part of Sears Roebuck? Or was it Monkey Wards?

Posted by
7369 posts

I’d forgotten, or never knew, that Sears launched the Discover Card. Here’s more . . .
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discover_Card

While it separated from Sears years ago, it’s currently the third biggest card company in the U.S. The Wikipedia listing in the above link includes:

Starting around 2005, to increase acceptance around the world, Discover has formed several agreements with other payment networks internationally. This allows Discover cardholders to perform transactions while traveling abroad. Vice versa, cardholders of other countries may utilize their cards at U.S. merchants that accept Discover

Also, it mentions that Diners Club is now a subsidiary of Discover Card

Posted by
4113 posts

Hahaha! Monkey Wards…. Haven’t heard that in a long time, Nigel!

I still have my Discover, but other than it being linked to my cheap online local newspaper subscription, I never use it.