Chip credit card use (vs tap)

No problem at all with chip and pin. The tap limit is 50€, so many transactions are still done chip and pin

With US chip sig cards you can still use them anywhere there is a person doing the transaction so you can sign the slip. And most machines take them up to a limit. On the metro we can put a weekly ND pass on our card, but a monthly pass which is about 90 Euro is too much and we have to take that to the window to do the purchase in person. The tap card with my phone however does work on the metro machines. The facial recognition or code required to activate the phone tap card serves as a PIN.

I regularly use the tap function and have, so far, used it for transactions up to 90€. Tap is probably the safest transaction method for trans actions available.

If I may, what card do you have that is not yet Tap/Contactless capable? Maybe contact your card issuer and ask if you can replace your card with a contactless capable one. Basically all of my cards have sent new contactless ones well ahead of the "expiration" date on the card. Maybe they will even send you one without the annoying embossed credit card number.

I've been in Budapest 2 years straight. Using a U.S. tap credit card and U.S. tap ATM card. i bet i average 4 times a day. Maybe 4 times, at random amounts large and small, have I had to sign. I charged hundreds on a tap with no signature multiple times. Two or 3 times I've had to insert the card, but for small bar bills. Never ever used my pin for anything.

Simon’s right about the process for credit cards for French residents, or holders of French cards. It’s different if you have an American card. We’ve been in France for over three weeks, and after being told that we could tap (although, really, a contactless “hover” over the scanner usually works just fine) to pay up to €50, for anything higher, the card has to be inserted. The idea is to protect French customers, so that to ring up more than the nominal €50, the sale requires a P.I.N., which is initiated when a Chip card is inserted into the handheld reader. Well, without a P.I.N., and for a transaction more than €50, we started asking places let us try tapping. To the amazement of the retailers and waiters, the transactions went through. Sometimes there was then a transaction slip for us to sign, and sometimes there was nothing more needed.

As to your question, all but one type of card scanner devices we saw in France (see exception, below) have had a slot where a card can, and (for more than €50 if it’s a French card) does get inserted. I haven’t seen anything with a track where a non-chip card would be slid, to read the magnetic strip, but maybe those still exist.

Is your card strictly a Chip card, kmh1 ? So it doesn’t have the “contactless” (tap) symbol on it, three concentric “waves,” like ))) ? Like Paul, my various cards have, over time, gotten “upgraded” by the issuing banks, so I think everything now has the 3-waves symbol, as well as a chip, when none of them originally did.

The one place where we’ve had no luck with the cards, chip or otherwise, has been at automated gas pumps. Trying both credit and debit cards, tapping or inserting into the slot, the French machine won’t accept any. Even our debit card, with a P.I.N., which worked this spring in Italy, doesn’t seem to work in France. For gas, we’ve needed to find a staffed gas station, and the person inside has quickly rung up the sale on our card.

We have never had a problem with our US tap cards in France: Capital One, Chase, and we used to have Amex. In fact, for about a year my husband was using his Cap One to buy our daily baguette. I still pull out a US card once in a while to buy something.
OP: If possible, you should get a tap card. Several high-volume small businesses have told me they prefer a tap card over cash so they can transact quickly and without touching money. The businesses don't want to have to stop everything for a signature. Signature cards haven't existed in Europe for over a decade; we use a code. In fact, some clerks in non-touristy areas don't even know what to do with a signature card. I pulled out a Chase for a 60-euro purchase last week. The clerk looked puzzled and said not to bother signing.

I have found tap to be used preferentially over chip read, which is far preferable to magnetic strip swiping. Tap, or NFC, transactions are all cross referenced for validity, via secure data block link to a central network. Google pay and Apple pay operate much in the same way.

If I remember correctly, it is the development of NFC technology which slowed chip acceptance in the US. Using my US tap equipped credit cards in France, I have not experienced a transaction cap amount, nor have I yet needed to sign anything. Very recently, I made a no signature required, tap transaction at Monoprix for 85€.

Traveling to France, having a tap, NFC, credit card seems to really speed things up at the checkout.