seems like they ''excluded' alot of merchants like charities, religious institutions etc this year in fine print...?
Hate to say this, but I don't really blame Amex. Remember, the point of SBS was to get people to get off their backsides, go outside, and stimulate local small businesses. Some people get around that with certain phone/Internet transactions, here and there... fine. But to have institutions set up call centers basically "farming" the data and automating the process, costing Amex tens of thousands of dollars while not giving one whit of stimulation to the local small businesses as they intended?! Heck, if I were Amex, I'd be pissed too.
I'm not saying I like it. A lot of good organizations could use the money (my yeshiva and the Rubashkin defense team come to mind). But I can't really blame Amex for wanting to exclude such transactions.