Why can't I just get a list of places that accept Extraordinary cards?

There can be apprehension with using the cards if you don't know that they will be accepted in advance. This is something we're working on improving with future updates to our Allowances product.

We do not have a list of merchants, as that's not how our system works - we don't add merchants to a list.

When a merchant signs up to accept Mastercard as a payment method, they register their business with Mastercard using a Mastercard Category Code (MCC). The MCC for all pharmacies is the same, the MCC for all doctors is the same etc.

These MCCs are what are behind our categories that you add to your allowance rules. It says "Doctors" but behind that is "MCC = 8011"

At the time your team uses their Extraordinary card, we check what MCC code a merchant uses, and then allow the transaction to move forward if the MCC is in a category you've approved. We don't know in advance what code a merchant uses, so we can't build a list.

Merchants are required to select an MCC code that matches their business when signing up for Mastercard, but sometimes they don't, or their type of business doesn't fit neatly into one of the 9,000 MCC codes available. We can check any declined transaction and see what MCC a merchant used, and if that was the reason a card declined. It may be possible for us to reconfigure our category settings to allow purchases there in future.

Please encourage your team to contact us directly via email at support@extraordinarypay.com if they have a transaction decline at a merchant that they believe should have been included in a particular category - we'll see what we can do to fix this for any future transactions.