Visa vs Mastercard

[Austin Prefect]

My Mastercard credit card has switched to Visa, so I've cancelled it on the basis I already have a Visa card. I'm tempted to get another Mastercard for the sake of having one of each but I don't think I've ever come across anywhere that accepts Mastercard but not Visa, so s it really worth have a Mastercard as a backup? Is it conceivable that the entire Visa network could go down but not Mastercard?

[127Sport]

Austin Prefect said:

Is it conceivable that the entire Visa network could go down but not Mastercard?

Yes and it's happened before.

Mine has just done the same switch. Actually 2 of mine have. I do keep at least one of each type just on case of the scenario that one network is down and the other isn't.

[louiebaby]

I've not seen a situation where Mastercard would be accepted, but not Visa.

I've seen it the other way round, when Visa sponsored the Olympics. You could only pay with cash or Visa. Which was a significant pain in the ass.

[TikTak]

In the UK it's basically a moot point, with 99.9% of card enabled merchant accepting both. The days of having to have a compatible card died with Solo/Switch/Electron. The only thing this applies to now is Amex because certain merchants will not want to pay the additional fees for a limited number of people to have the perk.

The likelihood of one of them having a major outage and the other not, is vastly outweighed by other things that are more likely for example, cloud or bank specific issues stopping payments or someone like Worldpay having an issue.

The only place this MAY be applicable is abroad where some division occurs because of regional quirks etc.

[RichFN2]

I have Visa, Mastercard and Amex.

Amex is getting better but your still limited to major supermarkets etc with the odd independent shop/business accepting them.

Visa and Mastercard have been accepted in every country I have been to, however I did notice some countries such as Thailand you can only use Visa if you want to use contactless payment on public transport.

[Mazinbrum]

I recently bought shares in MasterCard and Visa as nearly every purchase goes through them and with high inflation on the way it's difficult to so how they won't go up, famous last words...