There’s also American Express, depending on your definition of “major”.

True but in Europe this is really hard to use. My work gives me an Amex and requires I pay all business expenses with it, which is really horrible over here (they know this as it's an EU company but they probably get great kickbacks or something).

For starters, only hospitality sectors accept it here (hotels, restaurants). Outside that you can forget it. Even taxi drivers will laugh in your face in a country like Romania. In France some will accept it but usually the machine is suddenly 'broken' when it's time to pay. Then when I whip out my personal Visa it suddenly works. Right... I often have fights with the finance guys over this because I had to pay with foreign cash or my personal card.

I think the issue is that Amex charges the merchants more or something. But it's just not a useful thing over here. I curse that card.

I don't think any bank here offers it to their customers either, it's always bank-branded mastercard or visa.

>I think the issue is that Amex charges the merchants more or something. But it's just not a useful thing over here. I curse that card

At this point it’s just network effects. Visa charges more for their premium tier cards (VISA infinite/Mastercard world elite) than AMEX charges for their basic cards; but people won’t turn away a Chase Sapphire Reserve

I don't think this is true in europe where CC fees are capped (and as a result CC rewards schemes are much more limited)

AMEX, Visa, Discover, MasterCard.

All prohibit "badthink".

Discover also basically doesn't exist in most of the world, and AMEX barely so.

Sounds like we should be lowering barriers to entry, not piling up more regulations?