American Credit/Debit cards

[nirish_mark20]

hey guys,

just out of interest, what are the different types of cards that americans can have? ie theres the obvious visa, AMEX and mastercard, which are Credit cards, but do you have things like Maestro or Visa Debit etc?

just name as many cards as you can

im asking because i am going to florida next year and will be renting a car. the company i am renting from have said that i must have a valid credit card, however i dont like credit cards. i do though, have a Visa Debit card, and a pre paid mastercard (which i have never used) - would these be acceptable?

[Ernst]

Visa debit has worked for me in that role in the past. A prepaid card would likely not be accepted. The big credit cards in the US are Visa, Mastercard, and AMEX. Discover is also available, but not widely accepted.

[KatsMeow]

Visa debit cards are accepted basically everywhere, I would say the best thing to do is if you are planning on coming over here, just buy a prepaid visa card from a store and use that the whole time

[thegodfather]

You can borrow my black card..

[956Vette]

Visa debit cards are accepted basically everywhere, I would say the best thing to do is if you are planning on coming over here, just buy a prepaid visa card from a store and use that the whole time

Not sure, but I know it is hard to use a prepaid on a hotel room...imagine the same would apply for a rental car. A regular visa or mastercard should have you covered

[Skully44420]

yep Visa is the way to go

[Kratos]

debit will work fine as long as you have plenty of money in your account, there is no difference between debit/credit/prepaid as far as the store is concerned. It gets difficult with rental car and hotel because they take a pre-auth without charging your card. For example if you are going to stay in a hotel and they expect you will stay three nights and it's expected to be 100 per night they may pre-autherize your card for 500 in case you stay an extra night or have room charges. If you don't have 500 available it will come up as declined even if you have 300 in your account. They charge your card when you are done to make it easier.

[Grant8010]

i have worked at rental car businesses. some will take debit cards some will not. most that will, will require a round trip airline ticket which you will have and then put a $300 dollar hold on it.

[gst528i]

You can borrow my black card..

The black card scares the shyts out of me. I charged a customer 300,000 dollars instead of 3,000 dollars. And it went through with out a hestitation.

If you have one u sir are a VIP.

["Maximus"]

Black card? From AMEX, I guess right? That's scary bro to be charged $300K just like that lol!

Anyway, a Visa/Debit card should be fine. A debit card gives you some sense of security guarantee (to an extent) as charges are processed through the Visa network... just make sure you have sufficient money in bank.