Using American Credit Cards in Europe???
 

Heading to Europe next week, and curious about using my credit cards.
Some people have said that I wont be able to use my credit cards for in store purchases because Europe uses some chip and a pin on their cards that american cards dont have.
I've tried calling my credit cards, but the people in India have no idea, and keep just saying if a store doesnt take it I can get money from a machine.

Anyways, I am headed to England, Belgium, France, Ireland, and Spain. Anyone have experiance with American credit cards in these countries?

Thanks

You'll be fine if you use VISA or any kind of VISA ELECTRON card.

Even thought my visa doesnt have any kind of chip on it?

not true. i have a bmw credit card for instance and they only allow usage inside of the US (for me at least...learned the hard way). then some of my other cards charge a 3% fee for any purchases made outside the country.

i recommend calling your CC company to verify things for sure. it depends from bank to bank. but anyway, always bring enough cash so that if by some crazy coincidence all of your credit cards stop working you wont be completely fucked

I know there is a 3% fee for converting the currancy. And I know it will work in bank machines over there.
3% is cheaper then having large amounts of cash stolen or lost though.

Just in England in particular I was told without a chip and pin that I can not make a purchase with the card.

ask your bank....

I've used my card all over Europe without a problem. :2 cents:

What card?

I would like to use my MasterCard if I can.

I used my cards in Paris all over the place, shopping, restaurants. NP.

You will be fine if you can provide a valid passport when trying to make a purchase. You use either your pin OR provide a valid ID-card (in your case your passport) and sign the receipt

If you're having no luck with the indian call centres then consider notifying your bank in writing, so they won't ring the alarm bells when you suddenly make a purchase half a world away from your home address. My bank suspended my card when I signed up at a new web hosting company, even though I've been making USD purchases for years (I'm in Australia). I received the letter notifying me of the suspension 10 days later!

In my case it was just annoying (and I was lucky that no automated charges were attempted whilst it was suspended), but if you're on the other side of the world and something like this happens it could be considerably more inconvenient for you.

Chip and pin only applies to UK cards. If they don't see the chip, they just swipe it and then it goes through the normal approval process.

No problem! maybe only in France you need a pincode, but not everywhere.

Spains fine, no chip n pin here

I survived in Prague with my Mastercard, and mine doesn't have a chip so they just swiped it. But I'm not pretty sure if the Czech Republic is part of EU. I also used my card in Sweden and it ain't part of EU.

Cards which DO have a pin and a chip can not be swiped in ALL cases, they can still be sometimes. Restaurants for example always just swipe it, even if it has a pin. At least the ones I go to.

In a store, if the card has a chip, you will require putting it in most likely.

In hotels it is so so... I was in switzerland with my belgian card once, it has a chip and a pin. They tried with pin first, I just do not have it for that particular card since I usually never use it to buy things, and they just swiped it instead and it worked fine.

So I doubt you will have a problem.

I used my regular visa and mastercard just fine in England. Only issue I had was that my wife and I have "CID" written on the back of our cards. We constantly had issues explaining what that meant when the person looking at our driver's license couldn't match "CID" to our real names.

You will not have a problem using your US Master Card in any of those countries.

The chip and the pin are for local cards issued by the bank within that country.

If you go to some small far off town or tiny village you might not be able to use your CC. In that case make sure to go to an ATM and withdraw money :thumbsup - if you get 300 euro for instance the charges from your bank are less than the 3% you pay the CC for the exchange

:2 cents: - Have fun!

Be sure and call your CC company and let them know you'll be traveling. In 72 hours I used one card (the one that gets discounts on travel :) ) in Georgia, California, Mexico, London and Ireland and they put a hold on my card until I called them from Ireland to let them know it was really me. They said that the best thing to do is let them know whenever I was leaving the country.

I used other cards in Europe and didn't have any problems - Visa and MC. Never tried getting cash though - not sure how that would work.

I just got back from my Europe vacation last year, I don't know how it is now, but I was able to use my credit cards there just fine, AND it paid off even more because my credit card converted the money to the least amount for Euro's and zloty.

No problem at all, just realize that some US banks charge huge fees esp taking cash from an ATM

I spent 4 months in europe last year, was all over the place, never had a problem using a mc or visa, amex was a problem tho

100 percent no problem with any VIsa or mastercard CC
Have a good trip

The problem with that, is it is not always the bank that has control over it. I am in mexico and on a regular basis, my debt card is denied at the register but has no issue with the atm machine. I have called the bank, they say to call Falcon, the security company, and Falcon says to call the bank. Neither one of them say that they can make a note on the account about me being outside the country.

I think with VISA or Mastercard you will be fine. Anyway call your bank

have a nice trip!

Dude... leave the drugs

The ads for Falcon in Australia show a geeky nerd reporting to his supervisor that he noticed a fraudulent transaction, reversed it, cancelled the card account and shipped a new one to the customer.

Yeah, I'd imagine the customer would be ecstatic to know that their card no longer worked, and it would take the best part of a week to receive a new one.....

i just love questions like this LOOOOL

I still haven't seen a country in Europe that didn't take MC. I think you'll be fine.
If you have a problem in Europe you can always go into a back and ask for help. They are very helpful.

First of all, you say you are in Alberta, so you don't have " american" credit card ... ( let's not get into Canada is in America; we all know that, aside from our neighboors ).

Secondly, your cards will work just like here . Alot of cards in France and Italy are in fact debit cards with visa , so this is why they enter a pin.

go to your local AmEx office and get a prepaid credit card to use in Europe. It will be cheaper than using your regular credit cards.

Me too. Visa and MC work fine. Discover will probably only work in the UK.

I had problems in the UK and France trying to buy train tickets from automated machines with both my Visa and MC. Seems they require the smart-card chipped CCs.

The only other problem I had was with one of my banks putting holds on my card for fraud protection purposes. Make sure you call them ahead of time and let them know where you are going to be to try and minimise this.

My only experiences with CCs is Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and France...so I hope this helps.

I found out in May when my mother came to visit that the Netherlands is pretty CC unfriendly. However, she didn't have a hard time at all in Belgium. Most of the little shops will take CC, though they prefer cash/pin. Not sure about the public transport system since we bought the train tickets to Antwerp here in the NL.

France, well, I just experienced that last month on holiday. Now, I didn't go to Paris or any of the huge cities in France...I was camping. You can pay for meals at the bigger places with CC, the French toll roads, the bigger grocery stores and shops, and for really expensive items with a CC. Most castles/museums will only take cash and the smaller towns and villages will only take cash. And make sure you have plenty of cash because you can not depend on there being a pin/atm machine in every location...bigger cities may have all their atms in one spot in the center of the city. Oh, and the smaller towns tend to only have one atm and if it's down count on it being down for the whole providence. (we drove to 10 towns before finding one that had 6 atms all within 10 meters of each other...)

OH...and be sure to call your CC company and let them know you're going to Europe so they don't think your CC has been stolen when you start making purchases there. And as a side note, you might want to call your health insurance to see what your international coverage is. My mother called hers for the heck of it and found out everything is covered over here if something were to happen.

Have fun on your trip. ;-)

As a back up I would leave some cash on the Epassporte. I know a shitload of webmasters from the UK to Croatia that have no problems getting cash from ATM's.