Credit Card Preference

In my experience Visa more than AMEX. I do often pay my hotel bill with my Skymiles AMEX with no problem. Depends on the account closing date!

I don’t even try to use AMEX most places though. Visa is readily accepted.

Our Amex card rarely leaves the moneybelt on most trips. 99% of the time we use Visa or MC.

Like Pam, I take both. If they take AMEX, I use it for the Skymiles. If not, I use Visa. More and more places are accepting Apple Pay, which I use if possible. It charges to my AMEX.

If you are buying SNCF tickets on-line, you just might find that AmEx works best. They seem to be exempt from "3-D Security" requirements.

How is France/Paris for Contactless payments?

I was in the UK last year for 3 weeks and only had to use a physical credit card for 1 purchase. Google Pay on my phone worked everywhere.

Also, Amex was more usable than I thought it would have been.

Most banks in France an the rest of Europe issue Visa or Mastercard. If an establishment accepts any cards, it will accept Visa an Mastercard.
AmEx and Diner's Club are minorities. Big hotels will accept them, smaller shops and restaurants may only accept Visa and Mastercard.

While MC/Visa have the most acceptance, AMEX has made a lot in roads in France over the past few years. My experience is that most retailers do now accept it. in fact, it's now the preferred card at one of the major supermarket chains, Monoprix.

I travel a lot around France for business and leisure, and AMEX works at nearly every hotel and every supermarket. Restaurants outside Paris are more often miss than hit, but acceptance is good in Paris. Small shops usually don't take it, neither do vending/ticket machines except the latest SNCF ones. But it's worth asking every time!

"If you are buying SNCF tickets on-line, you just might find that AmEx works best."

I found I had to use my debit card with SNCF / OUIGO rather than my VISA. VISA kept getting rejected but no issue with the VISA-branded debit card...

In my experience, Visa is accepted at more places than AmEx, but there will be a few places that accept both.

In my experience contactless payment in France is not quite as ubiquitous as it is in the UK but is catching up.

AMEX is becoming less and less accepted in Europe except in the most touristy of places.. Their fees to business are too high. Visa is accepted everywhere with MasterCard a close second. For the first time last year I saw signs by many registers in stores big and small that specifically said they don't take AMEX.

Anyone aware of a Visa or MC that does not charge fees? If using ApplePay linked to AMEX an option to eliminate fees?

Apart from those rare instances when I use cash in France at the the type of vendors listed above, I always use the Visa credit card.

I don't have the Am Ex card and will not use ApplePay, etc.

I use my Amex almost exclusively for car rental. I'm not sure for other things because I've never tried.

Visa card (s) has never been a problem wherever I've tried using it - except rare places that require a true chip and pin card. Most (99.9 percent) American cards are chip and signature. They work fine but you have to sign the receipt.

Automated gas stations need a chip and pin card. I went out of my way to get one and it works. You can get gas at any attended gas station, however, with a chip and signature card. The Toll Road rest stops are always attended. I usually went to big grocery stores that offered gas (during their attended hours).

Toll booths are a pain. I almost always got something to work, usually on the second try. A couple times nothing worked and I had to resort to cash. Keep some cash handy, just in case.

SAM!! Thank you for mentioning to try AMEX with SNCF! I have been trying to purchase train tickets for October and kept getting some kind of failure notice (before I even got to the payment part). When I did finally get to that screen, I decided to use the AMEX and yes, it went right thru.