Be aware of French Toll Roads not accepting credit cards

Were you yourselves using a chip and PIN card, or was that someone else you talked to? This one detail is different from our expectation, so if you have more info about that you could submit it to our book editors at http://www.ricksteves.com/forms/guidebook-feedback-form.

Yep, and you have to make sure you're over to the side of the toll booths where the cash only lanes are, and you have to make sure you have enough cash.
This can be a big stress situation where you get 5 or 10 cars pull up behind you, all wondering what the heck you're doing.

We tried both our chip and pin and our chip and signature cards, other Americans tried the usual mag stripe only cards. Our Barclays MasterCard was issued in the US and is a true chip and pin card; we got it specifically because it is one of the few US issued chip and pin cards. The pin worked great for buying Paris Metro tickets, gasoline and other kiosk items in France.

We used our Bank of America Chip and sign card in tolls on our route from Lille To Gray. It worked in most of the tolls, the one it wouldn't work in, luckily we were able to use our daughter's French issued chip and pin because I didn't see a cash option at the booth we were at. I now know we need to make sure to get in a cash lane.
It did not work in the one gas station we tried it at, we bought our train tickets at a ticket window, I did not try to buy metro tickets but my daughter uses hers at the train/metro station and to rent bikes with no problems.

Last October, the tollbooths we used in the Loire region specifically rejected Visa and MasterCard - the booth had images of the cards with big red Xes through them. I had gotten a true Chip&Pin card just to use in the tolls, so I was pretty taken aback. Fortunately we always had enough cash.

The reason this is confusing is because different companies run different sections of the autoroute. Your card might work on one segment, but not another. It depends on who is running that autoroute segment and how they have set up their payment machines. The easy solution is to ALWAYS use the cash lanes (marked by a green arrow). Most of the cash payment machines that I have used also have a credit card slot, so you can try your card first and see if it works.

the tollbooths we used in the Loire region specifically rejected Visa and MasterCard - the booth had images of the cards with big red Xes through them

well that makes no sense at all, was it a cash-only machine or are there some other mysterious credit cards that only the French know about???

It has to do with the card processing and verification systems used by the machines. Some machines in Europe will only accept European based cards. Always be prepared to use the cash lanes.

phred, there seemed to be a lot of other cards that were accepted; I didn't recognize any of them. These were not cash-only machines.

My wife and I have been driving through France, and have also experienced this problem (fairly traumatic the first time). We have a Schwab chip-and-pin card, but that does not work. We carry plenty of cash, as advised, move to the rightmost toll lane, and put on our flashers to try to alert people to possible delays; that seems to help.

Some toll booths do not even accept cash! In those cases we have to push a "talk" button, wait to speak to someone, explain our situation, and then put the money in a little dropbox just past the toll machine. This sounds worse than it is BTW.

Can you use paper euros or do they have to be coins like most in the US?

Can you use paper euros or do they have to be coins like most in the US?

The toll booths we encountered took both paper and coin.

Also, regarding earlier input on credit card logos being X'ed out on signs at the toll booths, we did see that, but it varied. Typically, but not always, it was the Maestro card (looks like a MasterCard logo) that was crossed out but normal Visa and MasterCard were not crossed out. For first time travelers, can certainly be confusing.

I have an Andrews chip and PIN card, and on our recent trip it did not work in any of the toll booths I tried (but it has never failed to work at gas or train station machines, or parking lot machines), but since I expected that based on a prior trip, I made sure to go to a booth that also took cash. After the first 2 toll booths I stopped trying with the CC, figuring it was unlikely to work.

mvavery,

Thanks so much for your post! We will be driving a rental car all over Normandy and The Loire regions this fall. This is exactly the advice we need to know ahead of time. Will make sure we have plenty of cash on hand as our cards are old-school strip or chip and signature, not chip and pin.

Thanks again, very helpful. :0)

Went through all this last week. Only my non-chip AmX card worked. Very stressful to be 6 deep and not getting a chip Visa to work. Pack mega Euro's as I spent about 30 Euro's going from Amboise to Beaune.