Using debit card in France
 

How easy is it to use a debit card in France instead of using a credit card or carrying lots of cash? My bank does not charge a fee for using debit card internationally but credit card is 3% of purchase.

You should NEVER use a credit card to get cash from an ATM. Your credit card will begin charging you a high finance charge as soon as you make the withdrawal. It will be considered a loan, which is treated differently than a charge.

Most use their regular credit cards for charging large amounts and use their debit cards to obtain cash directly from their checking account. Through all reviews of the options, this seems to be the least exensive method for most people.

Hi Grammy,
To give you the other side of the coin, I don't possess any credit cards so only use debit cards whilst in France (two or three times a year).

Never had a single problem either withdrawing cash or paying in stores. Hope this helps.

Hi IG,

In general, your debit card will be accepted as readily as a CC.

There are places, auto rental for example, where they want a CC not a debit card.

Why not get a CapitalOne CC? No conversion fee.

((I))

Back up! Use your Debit/Check card to draw cash from Your local/home checking (sometimes savings) account. Use your Credit Cards to pay for purchases. Pay the Credit Card bill on time and no cost will be incurred except a foreign exchange conversion percentage. That usual fee/cost is currently 3%. The ATM use fee for your Debit/Check use varies. I pay $2 each time I use an ATM machine and my Debit/Check Card and 1% of the amount withdrawn. The currency conversion rate will be slightly over the Daily Rate. These charges show up monthly as three entries on my bank statement for each transaction.

ATM/Debit/Visa Fees 1% of W/D (in $s)
Other Bank ATM W/D $ Amount W/D
Service Charge $2

I don't see why someone has to use their credit card over a debit card if they want to...
except for:
- large purchases (c.c. has better consumer protection)
- where a debit card isn't accepted
therefore you should travel with a credit card but feel free to use a debit card for meals, hotels, ATM, etc.

All that counts in France is the logo (VI, MC, etc.). Nobody cares if it is attached to a debit or credit card.

I agree with kerouac - nobody knows/cares if it's a debit or credit card. We vacation in Europe (mainly France) two months each year and we only use our Morgan Stanley Debit Card. We use it at groceries, gas stations, restaurants, ATMs, etc.

It does not charge any transaction fee, and only a 1% currency conversion fee - I don't know if this is the Mastercard 1% or if Morgan Stanley has added the 1% on top of Mastercards 1% (I suspect the latter). I also use it to get cash at and ATM, and there is no transaction fee and no currency conversion fee. I also get "miles" with the debit card, but I have not redeemed any yet, so I don't now how it compares with other FF programs.

I get full consumer protection with the card - plus lots of other travel benefits (31 day CDW for car rentals, health care help, evacuation, etc).

Stu Dudley

Your debit card will work fine - except for some specific things like unattended gas stations, ticket machines in train stations (but they will work at the ticket windows), and some car rental agencies.

If you aren't renting a car - really nothing to worry about. (I'd never want to rent a car using a debit card anyway - it could tie up your entire cash reserve)

Thanks to all you guys who responded re: my question about using debit card. I feel much better about it and am quite excited about my trip to France. I leave in 10 days (with my daughter and granddaughter) and it will be my first trip abroad.

Another bit: Charging a purchase with a Credit Card allows up to about 30 days before the bill needs payment! Charging or rather, paying, with a Debit/Check Card causes an instantaneous withdrawal from your checking account.

If you use a debit card for accommodation you may find that a rather large part of your funds is locked out by the hotel just in case you skip town or mess up the room

For that reason alone it's a very good idea to have a CC

BTW which bank is it as it's unusual for US banks to do anything for free

Alan, LOL. So true.

We used a debit card for an account that I opened specifically for our trip to Paris. I don't recall having any issues with it. It was handy because we didn't have to carry large quantiites of money with us while we visited different museums/sites.

Alan, I imagine your question about 'which bank' is directed at the OP, but I can also say that Compass Bank does not charge out-of-network fees for ATMs. They pass on the Visa 1% for ATM use (and 2% for purchases). A hotel isn't going to put a hold on your debit card if you are paying the final bill. At least, it hasn't been a problem for me.

GSteed, while delaying the payment for larger travel expenses works for most people, for others it is best to work out of available cash saved for the purpose. Anyone trying to lose weight who says, 'ok, one more pain au chocolat isn't going to hurt - I can walk it off later' knows what I mean.

Nobody mentioned security isssues in this discussion.
There's a big difference in CC and debit cards in terms of security. We never use our debit cards outside of several local businesses except at an ATM to obtain local currencies. We have never had a problem in Europe doing that. My wife's lost debit card (in the Czech Republic) was reported immediately. There had already been an unsucessful attempt to use it at the airport. We have several times lost credit cards, but as far as we know no attempt to use them was made. Only last week my son's debit card was compromised even though he had not left the country, nor lost his card. Someone was able to get $3500 out of his bank account with just the numbers.

Are we just unlucky? Maybe, but we do not use debit cards for credit cards, nor vice versa. We are thinking of asking our banks to replace our debit cards (also useable as credit cards) with cards which are only debit cards (requiring PINs for all transactions) or maybe even cards which are only for ATM use. You can't be too careful. I believe that theft by credit/debit card is worse in Europe than it is here.

Merchants have to pay a fee for the privilege of your using a credit card (and, I believe, a debit card).

Many (particularly small) merchants will offer a discount for cash, but you have to ask for it.

So if you are really economizing, it would make sense to draw cash from an ATM and pay for everything in cash, rather than using either card.

The trade-off, of course, is that if you are carrying a large amount of cash and are robbed, your money is gone; if your plastic is stolen, there are pretty good protections so you suffer an inconvenience, but no monetary loss.

My personal preference is to use a credit card for purchases; my bank adds no charge to the 1% network fee, and I like being able to pay over time without penalty, as when I charge something today, but don't have to pay until November or even December.

Most merchants in France pay a commission of 0.65 to 0.85% to their bank for accepting Visa and MasterCard, so I personally would be very suprised if they gave a discount for cash payment instead of using those cards. The French commission for bank cards is reputedly the lowest in the world and was brought about by the rapid generalization of the chip & pin cards in France 15 years ago, which greatly reduced fraud.

American Express and Diners have a significantly higher commission, so there is room for margin there.

Grammy, Make sure you check that your PIN number for your debit card is exactly FOUR digits.. Everything is set up in France for entering only four digits (****) and if you PIN is longer, you are not going to be able to get money from an ATM.

Plenty of ATMs accept 6 digits.

>>French commission for bank cards is reputedly the lowest in the world and was brought about by the rapid generalization of the chip & pin cards in France 15 years ago, which greatly reduced fraud.<<

My wife works for Visa. She says that in some countries and perhaps in the US, the merchants are charged a higher rate if they have to manually enter a credit card number - vs. using the magnetic stripe or the Chip. Manually entered numbers have a higher fraud rate. Sometimes when merchants have had trouble processing my credit/debit card, they asked me if I could offer another card instead of them manually entering my CC number.

Stu Dudley

I was working with my debit cards yesterday, getting an increase in our daily withdrawal limit since the euro is now worth much more dollars.

I had forgotten, but my bank had also issued a debit card associated with my savings account. I think the general rule is Europe remains that a card will be accepted only if associated with a checking account, but not a savings account.

I hadn't tried to negotiate a lower cash price in France, but I know it can be done in some countries. I think I have read that the merchant fee can be as high as 8%, although I think that varies with the country, and with the individual merchants.

Roussillon: &quot;<i>Everything is set up in France for entering only four digits (****) and if you PIN is longer, you are not going to be able to get money from an ATM.</i>&quot;

That used to be the case (in most of Europe as well). But for quite some time now longer PINs have worked. It is just a guess - but I think it has been about 4 or 5 years since PINs were limited to 4 digits. PINsdo still need to be numeric-only since most key pads don't have letters.

clevelandbrown, it's not that they don't accept them if they are only attached to a savings account; I have a couple of those and they usually work. The issue is that if you have a card that's attached to both a checking account and a savings account, you can't access the savings account because it's considered the secondary account and the machines only access the primary account.

when our US cards add the extra chip like they do in Europe, then we can use the cards at gas stations - a pain now to find an attended station at times.

also watch your Debit card limit on the amount of allowed withdrawals - I raised mine way high to get plenty of cash to save the transaction fees - small but everything helps with the dollar in the toilet

we had trouble using our credit cards at some smaller tabacs and small stores because our cards did not have a chip - the proprietor told me when I asked why the card was accepted in some places and not others that it depended on the network the store uses (?). Also, don't forget to tell your bank that you will be traveling, one of us forgot and the card was frozen for a while. Good to see that someone is paying attention to protect us, but it was a pain.

As a Canadian, a debit card to me means usiing it to pay for purchases at the point of slae form either my chekcing or savings account. I have heard some people say they have their card to pay for groceries, but I have never been offered this option, noe seen any (obvious) torusit do so.

If you mean a card used to access cash from my accounts back home, yes, this is available all over Europe and is the preferred way to access cash for your time there. I have a 4-digit pin #, and the funds come from the checking side of my accounts. This topic has been discussed in a War and Peace length here, so you can search...but essentially it seems there are no fee cards, BUT..since banks can tweak the interest rate, no ulisted fee may not mean no charge.

Credit cards..I've used VISA and Amex (less common) NEVER have I used it for cash...why should I, I have my money sitting in bank at home. I have found that in general machines over there will not accept my card (e.g. SCNF rail tickets, Roissybus tickets at CDG,etc) since I do not have the chip technology. When that happens, I hope the machine will take cash, or I go to a manned booth.


My currency rule is...there are two ways I can get charged, a fee and the currency exchange rate. So, for example, when I see currency exchange bureaus say &quot;NO FEES&quot; I KNOW, for use, they are making it up in the currency rate they choose. A hotel may be glad to exchange currency for me...they are not a charity, they are making money.

Hi ImGrammy, we used our debit card when in Paris this past July to withdraw cash...We didn't even think to try using our debit card in a store etc.Maybe because my french was not good, therefore I found it easier to deal with cash. Make sure you have a 4 digit password not 6- they don't accept 6 digits. Also, their bank machines are numbers only, not letters. I had to do some quick thinking because my password is a word not numbers. My husband used his credit card at restaurants and a few shops. I don't think debit cards are as widely used in stores as in North America. Good luck Ptm