Credit cards in Europe

[Anonymous]

We are traveling to France in a few weeks and have credit card questions. Many many years ago I remember that it was hard to find retailers that took Amex. Is that still the case? Also, DH says that he is concerned about our MasterCard not working bc in Europe they use some sort of chip technology. Is this true? Seems unlikely but I don't want an "I told u so" later. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

No, they still take our cards everywhere - sometimes they'll ask for your PIN, and just tell them there is none and press the 'enter' button on the pad. The only times that the cards DON'T work are when you want to rent a bike from a kiosk (in Paris) or at the train station kiosks. You will have to go to the stand instead and deal with the person.

Before you go, also consider buying tickets and other basic purchases online. For example, Vélib, the popular Paris bicycle rental system, whose rental kiosks have been known to reject cards without embedded chips, now accepts online payments for one- and seven-day tickets at velib.paris.fr. Rail Europe, which lets American tourists buy many European train tickets in advance, recently added local British train tickets to its online offerings at raileurope.com.

For backup, also consider carrying a preloaded debit MasterCard from Travelex called Chip and PIN Cash Passport, available in pounds or euros, which is equipped with the embedded chip. But use it only when you can’t use other cards. While it does not cost anything to use the card, the exchange rates you’ll get when loading it with cash aren’t great.

Anyway, that's the only other option. As faras Amex acceptance, it's similar to here. Some do and some don't take it. All will take a Visa or Mastercard without a chip thoughwith those couple exceptions.

[Anonymous]

Currently living in Austria. Have never seen anywhere that takes AMEX and MasterCard is accepted few places. Definitely bring a visa

[Anonymous]

The chip is for contactless payments. Some American cards have the chip too. Check the back of your card. But, most places that let you wave also let you swipe.

[Anonymous]

Can you swipe your phone over there?

[Anonymous]

No, the chip is NOT for contactless payments over there. That's something over here. Their chip is in there so you also have to enter a pin for fraud. Everywhere still takes a swipe except those places mentioned in 14:10. And in France, they take Mastercard everywhere and Amex many places - I've traveled all over the country there tons.

[Anonymous]

FYI - Capitol One does not charge for international currency transactions while Amex does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FYI - Capitol One does not charge for international currency transactions while Amex does.

And the only credit card in the market that doesn't charge a fee (at least last summer when I investigated before we moved to Vienna Austria).

[Anonymous]

A couple of years back in Germany we were very surprised that many, many places (restaurants and shops) did not accept ANY credit cards. Spain, France and Italy were a bit better, but still it is worth to have some cash and your ATM card with you at all times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FYI - Capitol One does not charge for international currency transactions while Amex does.

And the only credit card in the market that doesn't charge a fee (at least last summer when I investigated before we moved to Vienna Austria).

Chase's British Airways also does not have a fee, and you can get $50000 for signup, but it has a $75 annual fee. Also the Charles Schwab credit card doesn't have a fee but I am not sure if they are offering it to new customers.

[Anonymous]

Oops-- I meant 50000 miles not $50000! (Now THAT would be a good deal)

[Anonymous]

I find that hotels almost always take AmEx.

[Anonymous]

Capital One is the only credit card that doesn't charge a foreign currency fee and it is so worthwhile! I've never had a problem with a credit card in Ireland or France but it is true that there are a lot of places in Germany that simply deal in cash only. Another thing to watch when you use a credit card is that they complete the transaction in Euros. Sometimes places will process the transaction in dollars as a "courtesy" but in reality you are getting a really poor exchange rate. This happens a lot in Ireland and I just insist on processing the transaction in Euros or I pay in cash.

[Anonymous]

Watch out for the usage fees cards will charge - something like 2.5% or so.

[Anonymous]

We have found using our ATM card and having cash (Euros) available for food is the best way to go. For hotels,rental we typically pay ahead of time, but we haven't had any problems paying for a rental car with a credit card once we got there either. For large, expensive items while there we pay with our credit card. Interestingly we were just in Norway and neither our ATM card nor Credit card worked in the grocery stores so we had to plan for cash only and since food is expensive there we really had to count up what we were purchasing. Even if when we told them we had no pin number for the credit card (visa) it was not usable at the grocery store.