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.

I'm xyz123 and I approved this message.

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/ban...ers-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.

I'm xyz 123 and I approved this message.

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.

<i>They have finally understood that the rest of the world is not going to go away.</i>

From what I've been reading here, the rest of the world consists of Europe and Canada.