So I was in Tesco the other day, spent over £30, ‘contactless logo’ appeared, bring up my Apple Pay card, showed my face to my phone, and then stuck it on the reader and… it didn’t work.
The till operator then told me ‘it’s not set up yet for transactions over £30’
Surprising, because a lot of places (Morrison’s, Waitrose) do accept £30+ now. And also surprising because if that’s the case why does the logo show up on the card reader!? My guess is because their clubcard is ‘contactless’… but it’s makes it all bloody confusing!
I had this exact thing in a Tesco petrol station. The women did the usual “It won’t work for over £30” to which I replied that with phones it does work because you authenticate etc. etc. She told me to give it a go and it failed. The women had a smirk on her face and I felt like a total plonker
I have used Apple Pay for large transactions in loads of retailers, over £100 in a lot of cases, with cashiers being really surprised. I don’t know why Tesco artificially limit it?!
So to add clarification here – the Contactless limit is £30. There are certain chip & pin terminals that allow higher payment amounts if they accept the authorisation methods that are used by things like Apple Pay or Samsung Pay.
Just because you’re paying with your phone on a contactless terminal, it doesn’t mean you get a higher than £30 limit. It’s the same as paying with your card using contactless.
I can confirm Tesco have enforced a limit of £30 for all forms of contactless payments, phone, watch, card, etc, in both stores and petrol stations.
Morrisons on the other hand recently added little infocards around card terminals that advertise no limit for Android Pay and Apple Pay, but £30 limit for contactless cards.
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Anarchist
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Not all contactless payments. As said previously, their Tesco Pay+ app is contactless and has a much higher limit. They want you to use that so that they can more closely track you, presumably.
Sorry, I meant the more widespread methods rather than store-specific ones. And yes, it’s almost definitely to track you more.
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Anarchist
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Something I came across recently on a trip abroad was contactless and PIN. So for large purchases you’d wave the card and then tap your PIN into the reader, similar to contactless ATMs here.
So, Apple Pay seems to be a very controversial topic here. Specially since Monzo supports Android Pay. As someone who just moved from the Google Pixel to iPhone I agree it sucks since Monzo is my main bank account.
I’ve been thinking whereas implementation time could really be the only reason Apple Pay is not available yet. It could be but since Android Pay is supported I find that unlikely. Then I realised that every year since the launch of Apple Pay, Apple mentions in the WWDC all the banks that are going to support Apple Pay next. Could this be the reason behind of Apple Pay? If so I guess we’ll find out June 4th.