Credit cards at restaurants

things are totally different these days, cards widely accepted, they bring the card consul to your table.They will ask if you are paying by cash or card,if cash they will print a receipt bring it to your table and you pay,if credit card they will do it at the table.

Agree. There are no meaningful issues with credit cards (one exception*, see below). Remember, if your card gets used fraudulently, you are generally not liable, your credit card issuer is. I use cards all the time (as much as possible, actually) overseas. Never a worry.

Exception: The one thing one needs to watch out for when using a credit card is the scourge known as "dynamic currency conversion" aka DCC. (If you're not familiar with it, you need to google it and find out - it's basically a "convenience" charge to convert the charge into your home country's currency - at a horrible exchange rate - resulting in a big profit for the merchant and a loss for you.) DCC is spreading fast, and in fact I ran into it a lot in Prague so be on your toes. Be very watchful and be very careful about being sure you can and do decline it - I've been in small restaurants where I was never offered the option to opt-out and the charge was automatically aded to my payment (restaurant staff professed ignorance). In my case it was a tiny charge but it pissed me off - it's totally unnecessary and a complete scam. Be on the lookout for anything that mentions paying in your own currency, and always decline it.

Of course, you should already be using a credit card that does not charge "foreign transaction fees" (if you don't have one, get one).

Don't forget to notify your credit card company of your travel plans, so they don't suspect fraud and shut down your card. Best practice is to have multiple credit cards with you (and multiple debit cards, each tied to a separate bank/account).

The business of automatically charging tourists from countries with different currency in their home currency (to generate extra profit) is spreading. I agree that it is infuriating. The customer is supposed to be offered a choice, but fairly often he is not. Poland is especially fun, because the card-terminal screen is all in Polish, and it's just about impossible for a non-Polish-speaking customer to know which button to choose if he wants to pay in zloty.

One way to mitigate the unwanted-DCC risk in restaurants is to plan to tip (if you do intend to tip) in cash even though you are paying for the meal with a credit card. I'm thinking about adopting this practice so I can have the charge slip in my hand (showing dollars if the server has pulled a fast one) before I decide whether or how much to tip. Of course, this will not work in places where a tip ("optional" or not) is already included on the charge slip.

Credit cards were accepted at Prague resturants without problem during our visit 7 or 8 years ago. As noted in Uniglas' reply above, Prague and Europe have portable credit card chip reading terminals that are brought to your table. Your card does not leave your sight. Card machines will commonly have a place to add a gratuity if you so desire.

I had a feeling this was the case, but I appreciate the confirmation, so thanks so much! And I agree that the trick of offering to convert to American dollars is definitely spreading. Where I might get asked that once or twice on a two week trip, it seemed to happen once a day when I was in Ireland this past month. It’s very irritating, but thankfully I at least know better. It’s worth warning newbies about.

I have no problem if they ask. It's when they don't ask that I become livid. I have learned that it is a big, big mistake to wait to clear your hotel bill the morning you plan to leave. I make sure I do that the night before so there's time to argue about any DCC funny business.

I just got back from RS’s Eastern Europe tour. First night in Prague (before the tour started), the hotel restaurant ran my bill in USD, and I made the waiter do it over because he never asked. In Poland, I was told more than once that the machine automatically does USD if you use an American credit card. However, they would void the transaction and then run it in zloty if I asked. The transactions all went through correctly—in no case was I billed twice, which I was afraid would happen.

They lie. Probably at the direction of their managers.

The terminals often (always??) default to the customer's home currency, but there is a button you can press to decline that. The problem in Poland is that everything is labeled in Polish. I don't remember running into such challenging interfaces in any other country. And of course there's the problem of service personnel just pressing the Confirm button without letting you make the decision.

I, too, have insisted that US dollar transactions be corrected. I've had people claim they don't know how to void a transaction (another lie). I just tell them I'm not going to sign the receipt until they fix it. It is a really big pain and tends to retroactively spoil the meal. Who wants to spend 10 minutes arguing with restaurant (or hotel) staff?

The last few times I was in Poland in 2015, 2016, 2017 was just day trips in border towns on the Polish side of the Oder, obviously not in an urban center.

I've paid in zloty and with the credit card. They never mentioned about the DCC. I did the entire paying transaction in German, maybe that's why I was not asked or the fact that the restaurant or cafe is located in small border town