On autoroutes none of our cards are accepted - so cash is essential.

Not even with a person in the toll booth?

ts impossible to rely on cards

True. Unless you spend all of your French vacation in central Paris, be prepared to have problems with magnetic strip credit cards. Much of the new credit card processing equipment no longer is capable of processing magnet strip credit cards.

Automatic machines on the autoroute in France would not take our credit card but how wonderful it was to enter Italy where our credit card worked fine!

>Not even with a person in the toll booth?

There are many tolls with no human toll collectors.

What about ATM cards with magnetic strips, did they still work? I don't relish bringing a huge amount of cash to cover all of our hotels, food, etc. on the trip.

So far we have had no problems using our ATM card with magnetic strip.

Unless you spend all of your French vacation in central Paris, be prepared to have problems with magnetic strip credit cards.

This year we had absolutely no problems even outside Paris.

I have been told recently that AMEX cards work in the tollbooths. I hope this is so as we will be in France in a few weeks. Although we will carry cash, if there is no person in the tollbooth to collect the cash, and the machines don't accept our cards, what do you do?

Bih
Our Australian Amex doesn't work, and on the roads we've travelled we've only come across one toll booth containing a real person. The machines all take cash as well as cards - there's a slot for notes, and another for coins. They also give out change.

Our cards are fine for getting cash from ATMs, so koala you don't need to travel with wads of cash from home, just top up regularly from the machines. They're everywhere over here - even the smallest of villages have them. We've come to the conclusion that almost every brand of bank has a presence in every town. You may have to hunt them out in side streets, but they are plentiful. Di

When I had an Amex card, it worked in the toll booths on all of the autoroutes that accept Amex. But there are multiple autoroute companies, and they don't all accept the same cards -- keep that in mind. They ALL accept Visa and Mastercard at the manned toll booths.

I have tried several times to book rail tickets on SNCF sites as I've been doing for several years using master card and each time I get message the card has been rejected. I have spoken to M/C and there is no problem with my card and they cannot help me. The message on my order stated Your Credit card has been rejected due to 3D security protection? How can this matter be solved as I prefer having my tickets to avoid long line and some times missing a train. Thanks for any advice on this matter.

Thanks, di and kerouac. I'm glad to know the machines accept cash. We'll keep cash on hand just in case we can't use the credit cards. Kerouac, do the booths accept swipe cards or only chip & pin? I think our friends had a problem getting the toll booths to accept their Visa and MC, but were able to use their AMEX.

Kerouac - we tried our Australian Amex card, along with a visa and MasterCard, and all were rejected!
Cavangal - the only time I had a problem with SNCF rejecting my card was when the card was due to expire before the date of travel. Just using a different credit card solved that problem. Di

Did you go to the manned toll booth?

Yes, we have also tried that - also with no success!
I wonder if there has been a crack down on the use of overseas cards, as we didn't have this same problem two years ago.
Perhaps all the card fraud that happens now has made everyone here a bit wary. Di

I am also Australian and have had similar experiences with my Visa card with 4 character PIN. I have just returned from 3 months in France and had previously advised my bank about travelling. SNCF ticketing machines and automatic toll machines I have been told do NOT accept overseas cards. I can confirm that I was unable to use my card in these situations. I asked the SNCF ticketing person and they confirmed, as Di suggested, that foreign cards are no longer accepted and this was introducted to protect users due to the high incidence of fraud.

I also had the following problems:
- unable to purchase RATP metro tickets using my card in the automatic ticket machine in Paris and also at one of the staffed metro stations. It did work however at staffed SNCF railway station counters.
- some museums automatic ticketing machines. The card worked at the automatic ticketing machine at Centre Pompidou but not in some other museums eg Musée des Arts Décoratifs.
- airport shuttle bus. My credit card would also not work twice in the machine used by the shuttle bus that I used to get from the airport to La Defense.
- automatic prepaid petrol bowsers. This proved to be a real trap when caught without petrol one public holiday and didn't realise that our card would not work in the 24/7 petrol station.

It worked at all banks where I withdraw money from the ATM and in all shops when making purchases including supermarkets. I did need to sign rather than PIN. I have bought more than 20 times SNCF tickets online (www.voyages-sncf.com) and have only once had a problem which was rectified when I tried again 24 hours later.

As a regular visitor to France, I have just spent a significant amount of time opening a French bank account to get around these issues. Opening such an account was time-consuming and frustrating and I would only recommend it if you are going to be travelling regularly to France and will be spending a significant amount of time there. Knowing in advance when the cards will not be accepted allows to plan around the situation e.g.planning to have cash, filling up vehicle in staffed petrol station or make alternative arrangements such as booking in advance online.

I have just spent a significant amount of time opening a French bank account to get around these issues.

That is one solution, but are there monthly fees attached to the French account card and fees attached by your bank to your ATM withdrawals?

I recently returned after a 2 month stay in France. I had numerous problems with both restaurants and one hotel which did not have credit card processing equipment that could accept a magnet strip credit card. There was no discussion, if I had no ¨pin and chip¨ credit card, I was required to pay cash. In each case, the equipment was recently (within a year) obtained by the restaurant/hotel. This is a trend that will most likely continue and if you have not yet had this experience, you probably will at some future date.

Additionally, in two restaurants I was told that their processing equipment would no longer worked with magnetic strip credit cards in spite of the presence of a reader slot.

In total, 4 restaurants and one hotel within a 2 month period flatly refused my credit card only because it had no chip. I believe it would be foolish to assume that your magnetic strip credit card will always be accepted. Either carrying extra cash or obtaining a pin and chip credit card are the only two solutions in avoiding embarrassing situations.

There was no discussion, if I had no ¨pin and chip¨ credit card, I was required to pay cash.

I did discuss this in one restaurant or store (I do not remember which) which could accept the mag stripe card. The waiter or clerk said that people did not know how to enter the proper code to by-pass the chip requirement and enter the mag stripe card without swiping it.

We are heading to Paris in October and will we have problems with Credit Cards & Debit Cards.This is our 1st trip to Paris so all help would be great.

Probably not....but if you stick to the main tourist areas. You ight look into getting one of the new chip and signature cards that are beginning to come out which might give you marginal more coverage although not universal.

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I don't know which country you are travelling from, RooBoy, but if it is Australia, my advice above applies.

Our Visa and MasterCard are chip and signature cards - sometimes they are accepted, and sometimes not. My advice about carrying cash that you top up regularly from an ATM is the safest way to ensure you aren't caught out. Di

We had no problem with any of our magnetic striped cards anywhere in France last month -- hotels, restaurants, grocery stores and shops all took them without incident.

Knowing about the problems we might encounter on toll roads in the south of France and petrol stations, we always carried sufficient amount of bills and change for both, so we didn't even TRY to use a credit card. The toll booths, by the way, give you CHANGE -- so if you toss 2 euro in the bucket for a 1.40 charge, you get 60 cents change. Just remember this, and move your car as close to the machine as possible; otherwise you either have to put your car in "park", get out of the car to collect your change and have motorists behind you sitting on their horns, or you just leave the change for the next customer to collect!

This has been discussed before, and was not available for our trip, but BofA has now rolled out the "chip" for precisely these international transactions where the stripe is no longer used. Since it just came out, I don't know how well it's going to work, but if anyone uses the new B/A cards with the chips embedded, I'd love to hear whether they work. Here's a link:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bank-of-america-begins-rollout-of-chip-credit-cards-to-consumers-2012-07-23

I guess the only downside to the BofA cards is that none of them are transaction free. So we only used our Capital One and Chase Preferred.

AND we made sure to say NO to the "convenience" (think "convenience CHARGE" or "convenience service FEE") of the DCC -- thanks to all of you who explained this, as we encountered the question -- US$ or local currency -- at almost every shop and hotel!

One error in the above.....one of the Bank of America credit cards with the emv chip, the travel rewards card, has no annual fee and no foreign transaction fee. Rewards? Eh in effect 1.5 points for use on travel related charges. But the no foreign transaction fee is helpful. Remember it's chip and signature not chip and pin so may not, probably will not, work in the unmanned or unwomanned kiosks and gas stations.

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Thanks XYZ123. Didn't know B/A had a no foreign transaction fee card. You'd think they might have told us, but you know more than the ones I speak to do!

It's sounding more and more like the EMV chip cards are going to be generalized (at least for international travelers) in the U.S. They have finally understood that the rest of the world is not going to go away.