Where left high and dry by US credit cards in UK & France
 

UK: our standard swipe cards worked everywhere except at a sporting goods store in York which was the only place to require chip & pin. In that location the chip & pin card acted as a chip & sign card. The only place we were left high and dry was an Asda filling station which refused both swipe and chip & pin American credit cards (and did not take cash either). Note that all restaurants, supermarkets, and admission ticket booths in England and Scotland will take swipe credit cards as a matter of routine without any fuss.

France: the same rule about restaurants, supermarkets and admission ticket booths taking swipe credit cards as routine applies here as well (French word for swipe is glisser, slide). Our chip & pin card did work here as chip & pin at an unmanned filling station next to a supermarket (this was so far the only instance in Europe where using our chip & pin card required entering a pin) however we were left high and dry on the autoroute toll booths which rejected both swipe and US chip & pin. Fortunately the automated booths accept cash notes and give change.

Note that magnetic strip & pin bank cards work at automated teller machines everywhere in both countries.

At fully-automated (ie no humans) supermarket petrol stations throughout Europe, generalisations like "refused both swipe and chip & pin American credit cards" are almost certainly oversimplifications.

These beasts have minds (or no minds) of their own, and are equal-opportunity pains in the goolies, with no discrimination on grounds of nationality (the idea that Walmart would discriminate against Americans in its UK stores is absurd), age, sex, disability or store loyalty card. I've been refused, with a UK chip and pin, at supermarket stations in Spain and France - places, be it said, where I've just had the card accepted at the food checkouts.

None will dispense fuel without pre-authorisation if it's having one of its misanthropic turns. The lesson is to plan your driving - especially at night and at weekends - so you're never totally reliant on unmanned supermarket filling stations.

And to treat all technophile predictions about the inevitability of unmanned retail with the contempt they deserve.

we counted ourselves exceptionally lucky once in France when we had stayed out later than planned and realised that we might not have enough petrol to get back to our gite. fortunately we found an automatic 24 hour petrol station and even more fortunately, it accepted the first card we offered it. [we had plenty more to try!]

Since then we have always made a habit of filling up during the day at somewhere with a manned [or womanned] kiosk.

In Iceland, BTW, there are many unpersonned petrol stations in some unlikely places, and we had no trouble with our cards at any of them.

Actually Tom_mn your title is somewhat misleading as you appear to have had a real problem only once which was at the unmanned petrol station in the UK. Even the french toll booth obliged by taking real money. Presumably the Asda filling station, having refused your card, also refused to dispense petrol, so you had to go somewhere else which did oblige.

So as I read it, you were never left "high and dry" at all.

The only real problem is gas, apparently, and then only for people who don't plan. I would never ever let myself be almost out of gas before filling up, even at home.

It also sounds you were NEVER left high and dry. When you couldn't use your card in a machine on the autoroute, you used cash or a person. Which is normal operating procedure. So you were not, in fact, left high and dry. You would have to be really dumb to travel around without any cash, also.

I wonder how the child smuggling worked out?

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...on-website.cfm

There's a wonderful alternative which will save all this worry -- cash. Accepted almost everywhere. Easily obtained. And tested by time; our ancestors, 'way back to 40 years ago, used cash a lot. You can too.

I was wondering about the child smuggler too. He should update us

Southam and Christina, cash isn't accepted everywhere. For instance, I read the Netherlands is going all chip and pin, cash not acceptable. Also some machines will not accept cash, card only. "Unpersonned" tollbooths, gas stations, and parking garages as well as automated ticket machines are problematic.

Love the title . . . when you weren't left 'high and dry' <i>anywhere . . . .

We encountered an un-manned France Autoroute toll booth in the Franche-Comte late at night, which did not take any of our swipe cards and would not take cash either (it was an isolated booth, and I think they feared cash theft). This toll booth was less than 3 K from our Gite. I got out of the car and lifted up the restraining "arm", and my wife drove the car underneath it.

Stu Dudley

Different companies operate the France Autoroute network, what works on one autoroute may or may not work on another. I always pay cash on autoroutes and have found several that only accept coin.

I have a PenFed pin and chip card that has worked at every pay-at-the-pump location I have tried. We also have a USAA pin and chip card that has never been refused anywhere we have tried it. The Penfed card has no annual fee and no foreign transaction fees of any kind.

I have yet to find a location in Paris where a magnetic strip card has not been accepted by a merchant. However in traveling throughout France, I have had both restaurants and hotels whose credit card processing equipment had no ability to read magnetic strip credit cards.

I would be very cautions about traveling about without a pin/signature and chip credit card.

It was a USAA chip and pin that did not work either time. With the Asda of course had to leave but the Shell station down the street took a swipe card.

It is unfortunate that the chip cards are not 100% reliable for acceptance and yes the problem revolves around the automobile.

Because I earned so many points over the winter I was able to get 2 free rooms per night in all locations except 1 hotel which had a huge family room that could have slept 7. Sorry for the lack of drama.

And FYI: The Marriott in Scotland did have prominently displayed Mormon materials in the room.

So - in fact you did have to get 2 rooms most places. So never had to find out if your smuggling plan would work. What an amazing fact.

Perhaps you eventually decided to listen to what everyone was telling you. But why would you admit that?

For people making future travel plans, the fact that the US is supposed to have adopted the EMV chip card system by October 2015 should solve all problems -- keeping in mind that your own bank can block your card if you have not informed it of your travel destinations and date.

"Stu - I got out of the car and lifted up the restraining "arm", and my wife drove the car underneath it."
Hilarious! Stu, you are a renegade! What about the camera surveillance?

Huh, our USAA chil and pin worked as a true chip and pin everywhere, even the autostrada where it didn't ask for a pin and we thought we were stuck but when we took the card out of the machine the arm lifted and we were on our way. It never defaulted to chip and signature, it's wierd yours did.

I doubt anything will change Oct 2015. There will still be automated machine snafus then with chip cards just like there are now.

The days that cash will always work, or a Visa card will always work, are gone.