71–80 of 267 posts
This is stupid marketing by the Visa team. But what has not been mentioned is why would the Olympic committee allow this! And money is not the answer as I would think Visa / Mastercard or other would still sponsor this if the committee had said all cards must be accepted. Personally I am more disappointed in the olympic committee than Visa.
Money of course. What did you think?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact of any corporate sponsorship isn't something to be proud of. Your Big Mac isn't going to taste better because they forked over a ton of cash to the IOC. I have a Diet Coke on my desk right now and I'm not proud at all over it being available at the Olympics instead of Pepsi.
Equating the fact that you can only pay by Visa with the fact you can only eat McDonalds french fries is a bit disingenuous don't you think? Paying Visa directly costs me more money (and inconvenience). It's a tax on everything.
In any other situation this would not be allowed to happen, and that it actually has happened (amongst all the other things, like the excessive promotion and monopolisation of unhealthy food and drink) makes me resent both the Olympics and the government that gave them so much of a free pass.
The sheer amount of corporatism and hypocrisy depresses me.
More realistically, Visa was probably hoping that many consumers would, like the author, already have the option of and be forced into using their Visa card. I agree that this seems, in addition to being extremely frustrating to almost all consumers, a silly marketing move, but I'm sure that Visa has run the numbers and has a sound business reason for doing this. Since, judging by mthoms's post, this seems to be a tr…
I disagree completely. Visa sponsored the event - why would they want competitors there? When the average person sees that his or her Mastercard is not accepted, I don't think the first response is "damn you, Visa!" Just like, when I see an AMEX card isn't accepted, I don't say "Damn you Visa and Mastercard for offering lower rates!" The image that Visa is trying to promote is that they're the most commonly accepted…
Were there ATMs at the Olympics that would dispense cash from a non-Visa card? You can always walk out of Tim Hortons and get cash out of an ATM, or go to another coffee shop. When your options are either "have no money" or "waste ticket by exiting venue to get cash I can not use at that venue because I can't come back in", it's a bit different.
Actually, no there weren't! Visa insisted that any ATMs that accepted other cards were removed from the venues. This lead to a marvellous screw-up when all of the Visa card machines at one venue went down and there were only 8 freshly installed Visa ATMs to handle the crowds (which replaced 27 that had been removed): http://news.sky.com/story/966545/olympics-anger-as-visa-card...
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Not really, but you have to estimate how much cash you'll need. You also run the risk of that cash being stolen.
It won't go bad after this day.. (but theft is a valid point)
More realistically, Visa was probably hoping that many consumers would, like the author, already have the option of and be forced into using their Visa card. I agree that this seems, in addition to being extremely frustrating to almost all consumers, a silly marketing move, but I'm sure that Visa has run the numbers and has a sound business reason for doing this. Since, judging by mthoms's post, this seems to be a tr…
There's also something to be said for this being a memorable experience for most consumers at the Olympics. I'm sure Visa damned well knows that a number of people will always remember using their Visa card at the Olympics.
I've been trying really hard to understand why Visa would make such an obviously unfriendly and counter-productive decision. The only theory I can come up with is that their real customers are the banks, and this is their way of saying to them "We're so completely ruthless that you're better off doing deals with us than anyone else". Seems a bit far-fetched though.