nanabee

I just returned from Norway in October and never once even used currency. Every single purchase was paid with a Visa card. I wouldn't bother with a US bank. It is very expensive IMHO.

nanabee

Manouche, all those purchases, taxi, restaurants, transportation, cafes, musuems, hotels, whatever, everything can be paid for by credit card. like I said I was in Europe for 11 days and never once used the local currency. It may give peace of mind but I would not buy too many Euros as it isn't really necessary IMHO.

PalenQ

I think we should not criticize folks who do something that may seem irrational to us if doing that thing makes them more comfortable - what if your credit cards do not work for some reason - never has happened in my decades of travel but - what if your ATM cards don't work - never has happened in my decades of using them but it could I guess or that's what folks fear so the rather negligible charge overall to have some euros on hand and the resulting peace of mind is well worth the costs and time to those folks.

StuDudley

nanabee - if you visit France and expect to travel on the Autoroutes, make sure you have some cash with you. Unless you have a chip card, your card won't work 100% of the time for paying at toll booths. And fewer & fewer toll booths are manned. Once, I had to get out of the car, lift up the detaining arm, and let my wife drive through. Same in many grocery stores, a few restaurants, and even some gas stations that had attendants.

Stu Dudley

PalenQ

Same in many grocery stores - don't they still manually enter the card number as they did for years mine at my local Carrefour - have not been there in a few years but can't you always use it at a manned or womanned place like supermarkets? Understood that gas stations or autoroute entries may only have machines.

StuDudley

Don't know what you mean by "manually - but if that means the clerk entering a number on a keypad - I've never seen that happen in France. My wife worked for Visa for 20 yrs at their corporate headquarters close to where we live, & she says that manually entered numbers have the highest error/fraud rate. Maybe that's why I've never seen it happen in grocery stores or gas stations in France. If the card reader won't read our magnetic stripe card, the clerk stares at us until we pull out our chip card or pay cash.

Stu Dudley

anyegr

I work in a cafeteria/shop in Sweden. Our card reader has a slot for chip cards AND a slot for magnetic cards. But some of our part-time workers don't know how to operate the machine properly.

Sometimes it is possible to manually enter a card number, if the chip or magnetic strip doesn't work. Sometimes the machine tells me it is not allowed. I think it depends on how the bank has set up the card.

Some smaller shops will refuse to take card payments below a certain sum, usually the equivalent of five or ten Euros. No, we don't use Euros.