driving in France

Deborah - Visa is definitely the most widely accepted credit card that is issued by US banks. Your Visa should be fine at gas stations on the Autoroutes. However, I had trouble using mine at hypermarches with self service gas pumps. It's likely that the machines require a chip that US cards don't have. So carry a spare 50 Euros in cash for gas. The hypermarche (Carrefour, Intermarche, etc.) are significantly cheaper than the gas stations on the Autoroutes.

I just got back from driving in southern and western France be aware that most gas stations are closed on Sundays except for autoroute stations. follow other posters on cheaper gas locations. My advice is to plan regularly on fill ups anyway. I found stations few and far between in general especially near Charles De Gaulle airport, there is only one Total station, and the next nearest one was out of non leaded. go figure. planning is important

thanks for all the good advise.

If you have an older card without the chip in it (can it be read in a machine by sticking the end in not by swiping) then you may have problems on many of the newer units even in Canada. If your card was issued in the past 2-3 years you wont have that problem I suspect. anti theft protection does have its drawbacks

My experience with France is the same: Foreign credit cards normally work at regular manned gas stations, including Autoroute stations. At Hypermarket stations, manned or automated, credit cards often do not work at all, only french issued debit cards (CB) work here. It has nothing to do with chip or not. My Danish issued VISA-card with chip does not work in many hypermarket gas stations.