My problem with the Coop Supercard Plus is that it's issued by Crédit Suisse. I have an Amex card from them and have been having nothing but problems with the card and the issuer from day one. First they sent the card to some old address of mine that they had still saved in their system from when I had an Academica student account with them - which was several years back and despite the fact that I had given them my correct address on the application form.

When I called and asked them to re-issue the card and send it to the address I had provided on the application form, I got a new one that didn't work because they had already canceled it - because they had also sent the first bill to the same old address - so I hadn't payed it because I never got it :-)

Since then, they keep on blocking the card for all kinds of reasons. I recently tried to book a flight with Easyjet. The card wouldn't work - so I called the help desk the next day. There they told me the card had been blocked for security reasons because someone from the Ukraine had tried to get authorization for a transaction. It turned out that they thought the .uk in easyjet.co.uk stands for "Ukraine" (I'm not kidding). They also didn't tell me this had happened. That could have gotten me into a very bad situation had this happened during a business trip or on a holiday.

Another time, I tried to order a cell phone directly from Nokia. They refused the card 4 times in a row (kept on trying). I called Swisscard AECS again and asked what was wrong - they told me everything's fine, the card should work. However, it never did. Sure enough I got refused a 5th time by Nokia before I gave up.

Anyway - I don't seem to be the only one with these kinds of problems - Swisscard AECS (Credit Suisse's card issuer) has pulled comparable stunts on two of my colleagues at work as well. If you get a card from them, make sure you have a backup. Don't want to know what'd happen if they blocked my card for some stupid reason while I'm on vacation and I don't have a backup.