Commbank Credit Card Changes + potential Discover Card offering

[QF_Flyer]

I have a discover credit and debit card and try them everywhere I can and it has never worked (yes I need a better hobby but here I am on a forum dedicated to airline points). Terminals here reject the card without trying it because they don't know the AID, it's like if you scanned a bus pass. I'm 99% sure the AUD exchange rate isn't even set, because even online storefronts that say they accept them don't actually.

If you have a merchant you think they work at please let me know! I want to see what an international transaction looks like on the credit card statement.

Yeah fair enough, interesting - I haven't had a Discover card, so don't know first hand, but I would have assumed at least places like Woolies, Coles, BP, Shell, Ampol, etc. (large, national retailers) or hotels/airlines would take almost all cards, but there won't be 100% coverage amongst those.

You say they reject it without trying, is that the operator saying you can't use it, or the terminal throwing a fit after you insert/tap the card? The latter I sometimes get with Amex, but at least I know it's the terminal there. I find it best not to ask, as sometimes the operator, knowingly or otherwise, will just say they don't accept Amex, but trying it results in Amex working just fine, and if it doesn't work I just say "ah, must be because it's Amex, I'll use a different card". I'd expect this to be even more common with lesser known (in Australia) networks (Im absolutely would expect blanks faces if I asked a 20 year old at the Macca's drive through if they accepted JCB cards, for example haha).

Admittedly, Discover being one which I don't *think* has been offered outside the US could prove interesting. In those cases, it's possible that the cards would be dual network (like some debit cards are Visa/EFTPOS, or how some MasterCards use/used Cirrus at ATMs - although Cirrus I think was part of MasterCard anyway, based on the logo styling), but that would presumably defeat the purpose (as if it routed via, say, MasterCard as a fallback, it would revert to the capped swipe fee model). I'm basing that also on Diners' operations in the US, which use MC as a backup (but they don't have the caps anyway, so it's not an issue there).

I'm just speculating on most of this, either way I'm keen to see what they offer.

 

[window_seats_only]

Yeah fair enough, interesting - I haven't had a Discover card, so don't know first hand, but I would have assumed at least places like Woolies, Coles, BP, Shell, Ampol, etc. (large, national retailers) or hotels/airlines would take almost all cards, but there won't be 100% coverage amongst those.

You say they reject it without trying, is that the operator saying you can't use it, or the terminal throwing a fit after you insert/tap the card? The latter I sometimes get with Amex, but at least I know it's the terminal there. I find it best not to ask, as sometimes the operator, knowingly or otherwise, will just say they don't accept Amex, but trying it results in Amex working just fine, and if it doesn't work I just say "ah, must be because it's Amex, I'll use a different card". I'd expect this to be even more common with lesser known (in Australia) networks (Im absolutely would expect blanks faces if I asked a 20 year old at the Macca's drive through if they accepted JCB cards, for example haha).

Admittedly, Discover being one which I don't *think* has been offered outside the US could prove interesting. In those cases, it's possible that the cards would be dual network (like some debit cards are Visa/EFTPOS, or how some MasterCards use/used Cirrus at ATMs - although Cirrus I think was part of MasterCard anyway, based on the logo styling), but that would presumably defeat the purpose (as if it routed via, say, MasterCard as a fallback, it would revert to the capped swipe fee model). I'm basing that also on Diners' operations in the US, which use MC as a backup (but they don't have the caps anyway, so it's not an issue there).

I'm just speculating on most of this, either way I'm keen to see what they offer.

The terminal instantly throws a fit and you have to restart the transaction. It's similar to trying an Amex at a place that has disabled it, except Amex cards process for ~2 seconds then decline. If you tap a contactless Discover card it instantly declines once it gets in range.

The timing of this is because CapitalOne purchased Discover 2 years ago, CapitalOne now wants to do something with the network. They are issuing Discover Debit cards instead of Mastercard to their banking customers starting this year. It's good timing for CommBank.

But I don't know how they are going to trick the other 3 banks to accept Discover... When they are the only issuers in Australia... Why would they. And, I'm 99% sure there is a solid 0 tourists using the network today because I can't get it to work anywhere.