Has anyone had problems accepting Amex gift cards? I had one decline.

[MCAULEYCOM]

Has anyone had problems accepting Amex gift cards? I had one decline and I can't get any clear info as to why. 

[ryanwanner]

Hello @MCAULEYCOM !

As far as I know, Amex-branded gift cards should work with no problem in Square.

With all prepaid gift cards, you have to run the card for an amount that is known to be on the card. As an example, if you try to run a $30 transaction on a prepaid $25 card, the transaction will decline. Square doesn't apply a partial payment for the amount on the card and then prompt for the rest. It's something that has been brought up as a feature request, but I'm not sure when or if that's something the developers are looking at.

Whenever I'm presented with a prepaid gift card, I usually ask if the customer knows how much is on it. I'll then split the payment (if the bill total is more than what's available), run the gift card, then complete the sale with the second payment. 99% of the time that works for me. If the customer doesn't know, I warn them it may be declined because the balance is less than the bill. That usually softens the blow of a decline message.

[MCAULEYCOM]

Hello @ryanwanner, thanks for the reply.

I was able to get the gift card to work but for some reason I had to run it for less than what was on the gift card.  For instance, the customer showed me on his phone that the gift card had $400 on it but for some reason it declined when I tried to charge $400.  I ran it again for $390 and it went thru.  That seemed kinda weird but at least I didn't lose the sale.

[ryanwanner]

Weird, but I may have an explanation.

Does your business accept tips? There are semi-internal merchant codes that are passed along to the processors at time of swipe, and if your merchant code says you can/do accept tips, the processor may have assumed a tip so it didn't authorize the card for the full amount.

Otherwise you got me. That's a good question that only those high-ups in the processors can answer I believe.