US credit cards accepted?

Very few US credit cards are accepted at pay-at-the-pump gas stations. Be very careful when traveling at night or on the weekend as you will most likely need to find a refueling location with an attendant.

There are almost a dozen separate companies operating the French autoroute network, and credit card acceptance policies vary. Be sure to have cash for toll booths.

It has been a while since our last Paris to the Dordogne car trip but toll booths are run by different companies -- last time we did it, those near Paris would not take our card (and often didn't have a manned booth to take money) while the ones along the Riviera and much of the south did. On one occasion we were backing up a huge line of traffic as we tried multiple credit cards -- finally got someone on the intercom who directed us to put the money in a box --it was not an electronic thing, just a box. The bill was 18.20 or something like that and we put a 20 in the box and he was able to remotely raise the gate. We used to carry a purse of change and small bills for the toll baskets or booths that took money but those are more rarely found.

We got very careful about gassing up at manned gas stations whenever we could, especially going into the weekends. Stations would be open to buy gas, but not have a person who could take a CC. Generally rest stops on the highways have humans who can take a credit card for gas. We never did find gas pumps that would take our cards.

On a brighter note, metro and train station machines usually take US credit cards now which was not the case a few years ago.

yes, I was pleasantly surprised that I could buy a carnet at the machine in a metro station. It said it wanted my PIN but then it just processed the purchase.

Don't gas pumps accept touch to pay? Everywhere else in Paris did.

Not in France, but I had some trouble with my card in England trying to pay at a Costco of all places. I try to get gas at stations with attendants in case the card doesn’t work at the pump. For tolls, I always have cash, just in case.

I've had issues with credit cards at tollbooths and gas station BUT my debt card has always worked so I make sure now I just pull it out first to save time.

I had this problem at several gas stations in France. A few years ago I arranged to get a credit card with a pin number so that I could buy gas at a station without an attendant. This particular card from Andrews credit union (thanks, RS) is the only one I have found that does not charge a cash advance fee for purchasing something like gas when using the pin. It used to work fine back in 2017 and earlier. The last time I tried to use it, in 2019, just before returning my rental car the only station available was unmanned and repeatedly rejected my Andrews card. Never even got to the point where I would type in the pin. An English woman at the station tapped her card and it worked but my card is not set up for that, more's the pity. This does concern me as we will be departing for France in a few weeks and driving everywhere. I know to keep the car filled up especially on weekends but, nonetheless I've had to beg other drivers to let me use their credit cards and then reimbursed them with euros cash. It just shouldn't be this difficult.
Also, I've always paid the tolls with cash. Hasn't now become difficult to do so?

Make sure whatever card you use doesn't charge an exorbitant "Foreign Exchange" fee or something similar. Usually these are per transaction and can really add up with many small purchases. One of my credit cards does (I don't us it overseas unless there is an emergency) and another I have from Barclays does not.

In our experience money baskets and booths that accept money are increasingly rare for tolls.

And FWIW. This has been a scourge in Spain but is now increasingly seen in France, the request when you use a credit card to choose to do the transaction in $s rather than Euros. This is a scam whereby you end up paying exchange fees twice. It is a profit center for the shop that has you do this. Never choose to do it in $s (it is intuitively a good decision though it is actually not, so it is easy to get trapped -- and be sure the clerk doesn't just choose that for you -- the clerk at Galleries Lafayette did and so we had to have her redo the purchase)

I also got an Andrews credit card for travel, it worked in a taxi to CDG when my other cards wouldn't. But it doesn't have contactless pay, I called them about it and they acted like it was some new-fangled fad that only the cool kids have. Yeah, whatever.