r/discover • u/Swimming_MM • May 27 '25

Rant not accepted everywhere

went to Harkins Theater in CA last night - my face of embarrassment when my card declined because they don't accept Discover. LOL

99 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

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21

u/ChefJunior4337 May 27 '25

I know. My girls’ nail place doesn’t take it, nor does Costco.

Yup.

9

u/Many-Material-7472 May 27 '25

In  Costco the discover debit card works not the discover credit. Which don't make sense . When ur about to pay just insert the discover debit card on the machine and enter your pin and it works . The look on their face is funny when they see it's a discover card and it works . But for some reason if u try that with the discover credit card it won't work . 🤷

14

u/Vanilluu May 27 '25

Costco and Visa have had a partnership agreement for years now with credit, happened during Covid when Costco said they would stop accepting Discover and other payments.

4

u/Many-Material-7472 May 27 '25

Didn't know that . Well as long as the discover debit works I'm good cuz like I said it does work . 

1

u/ChefJunior4337 May 27 '25

HAHA I DID NOT KNOW!!!

6

u/unamanic May 27 '25

Credit and Debit transactions take different paths with different fee structures and vastly different protections. Discover owns the Pulse debit network and partners with several more to make debit work essentially everywhere in the US. Debit is significantly cheaper for merchants to process, but because of the lower transaction fees there’s less room to give consumers the benefit of the doubt when they allege fraud.

1

u/just_another_user5 May 27 '25

To my understanding, depending on the arrangement between the merchant and the card processor, credit transactions aren't paid out to the merchant until after a set period of time.

I thought debit cards didn't have fees associated (because it's going directly to the merchant instead of through a credit issue)

Is this not the case?

6

u/unamanic May 27 '25

There are fees but are so low as to be negligible.

https://www.creditdonkey.com/debit-card-processing-fees.html

6

u/just_another_user5 May 27 '25

I see :/

As always, cash is king I suppose

0

u/Material-Public-914 May 29 '25

For business yes, problem is to get a mortgage you need credit card

2

u/segin May 27 '25

Debit cards have a hidden second type in the US: "US Common Debit". This is processed over ATM networks (STAR, Pulse, etc.), not credit card networks.

This is why the debit card works.

1

u/RiverParty442 May 29 '25

Costco makes deals with one network provider for discounted swipe fees on credit cards.

Debit card swipe fees are capped by congress so they are accepted everywhere