Apple Pay Virgin Atlantic Mbna Amex card keeps getting declined UK

HI,

I have applepay on both iPhone 6S and Apple Watch. Up until a few months ago I used to use Apple Pay in the BP petrol station by my work to buy lunch almost daily until one day I got a declined transaction trying to pay with my Virgin Atlantic America Express card issued by Mbna bank using my Apple Watch. I immediately used my card in the machine put my pin number in and the transaction was authorised fine. I thought it must have been a glitch.

I then tried the same thing the following day and got the same result. However Mbna also issue a Visa card for the same account for when stores don't accept AMEX. This then worked on my Apple Watch fine and the transaction works. Ever since this day I still cannot make payments using the AMEX card although when I go into Apple Pay it says my Amex card is ready to make a payment. The Visa card for the same account works fine.

I tried in McDonald's this time with ApplePay using the Amex card on my iPhone 6S and after trying 3 times the transaction still wouldn't go through. Just says not authorised on the cashiers terminal so I pay cash this time.

I also notice I can't use Apple Pay as a method of payment within the Apple Store app either.

AFter spending lots of time on the phone to Mbna asking them to tell me why it doesn't work they can only tell me there is nothing wrong at their end and they have no declined transactions so they think the problem lies with Apple.

I call Apple and they say there is nothing wrong at their end it must be a problem with Mbna or American Express. Going round in circles!

is anyone else having this problem and have you managed to get a fix for it? I've currentlay got an apple tech looking into this for me. It's frustrating because it used to work perfectly and now I'm almost embarrassed to try again.

Thanks

Steve