Chip and pin cards

Never heard of them, either, but the version my credit union sells (Cash Passport) has no advantages over the free transactions I get with my regular old credit union debit card, and it costs money to set up. When I inquired about it, they seemed surprised to find out that their own debit card worked just fine in Europe with no special "passport" card required. And as Ed says, people worry about things that don't even come into play most of the time. I have driven for a week on one tank of gas in Ireland (and I drive a lot). And just like at home, I would not be buying gas at midnight. If I was starting to need gas, I would fill up at the next opportunity. Even if I planned on driving all night, I would fill the car before it got late, or on Saturday. There are plenty of attended stations around.

Never heard of it. But if gas is your only concern, there's manned stations all over the place. Maybe not at midnight, and maybe not on Sunday, and maybe not in the smallest village, but ......... Also, stop and think a minute. On two tanks of gas in a cheapo car you can drive from Dunkerque to Marseille. There's bound to be a few places in the length of the country. I start looking around just below a quarter tank. If the C&P comes out of the wallet first, it gets used. If the striper is on top, it does the trick. There's a lot of myth floating around. A work-around is easy, a lot easier than searching through hell and high water for a new card for just one reason. On the other hand, I don't do much gas buying at midnight.

I looked very closely at Payoneer's website, and I noticed that they are very careful not to reveal the actual rates and fees. Do they have a fee to load the card? Do they charge a fee when you withdraw from an ATM? I couldn't find that information. Several times they say "nominal" fees, but won't reveal the actual fees. I did find a statement that the exchange rate is 2%-2¾% above the official mid-market rates. My local bank charges 1%! I'm concerned that Payoneer doesn't proudly tell you their fees. Maybe they're not so proud of them. They must know that if you knew them, you wouldn't be interested.

If gas is your only worry, just notify your credit card company and use your regular magnetic stripe card. There are plenty of gas stations that have attendants so you just need to plan a little bit and fill up when you get down around 1/4 tank. On the other hand last time we were in Europe for 4 weeks there were only 3 times that I needed a chip & pin card and those times, I REALLY needed one, the so called work around is not always easy unless you things like like a long walk in the rain. I just got a free chip & pin card from Andrews FCU. It is a slow process but it did finally happen and when I did call to check what had happened to my on line application the people were very polite and helpful. I have used the card to make reservation for a trip this fall and found that there are no foreign transaction fees and the exchange rates are very good. I would not do the Payoneer deal from a cost standpoint as well as I saw no reference to it being a chip & pin card. Remember ATM and debit cards are stripe and pin and the chip & signature cards are no better than a regular magnetic stripe card.

I too would recommend getting an Andrews chip and PIN, especially if you plan on a significant amount of travel in France. I got one last year, it took a little bit of effort, and now I have it for the foreseeable future. It has come in handy in France, as a lot of stations are now unattended. Even ones that have a booth now often have no one in the booth. Yes, with sufficient planning you can usually avoid a problem, but "usually" is not good enough when you're running low on gas in the countryside and it's the weekend.

We just returned recently from a trip where we spent a week in Provence. More and more, chip and pin cards are a necessity if you drive at all. The number of human-staffed gas stations is many fewer than it was just three years ago on our last trip. And if you plan on parking in any cities, all of the parking garages require payment by chip and pin at their machine caisses. We found none that had human staff or took cash. (We ran into a sobbing young American woman in Marseille who had driven her car into the garage innocently assuming that she'd have some way to pay, only to discover that she couldn't get the barrier to open because she couldn't pay her ticket. Luckily for her, we understood her predicament and we paid for her on our card and she gave us euro cash. I guess you could hope that someone would help in that way. Good luck to you, then...) One thing is watch out for is that some chip credit cards being issued in the US are actually chip and signature cards; they have the little chip in them in place of the magnetic stripe, but they still require a signature instead of a pin. British Airways Chase card is like that. They don't work in these unmanned situations. Luckily, we have a true chip and pin card through a UK bank where we have an account, but I would even consider the Travelex pre-loaded chip and pin if I couldn't get one otherwise. Because the exchange rate is so lousy, I would only load it with enough euros to deal with times when only a chip and pin will do. So I'd load it with, say, a tank's worth of gas (just get enough to be getting by with and gas up fully later at a manned station) and as many days and nights of parking as you think you'll need. Then use your ordinary stripe cards everywhere else.

Correction to my last post: Travelex has apparently discontinued its prepaid chip and pin cards in the US. Too bad...it wasn't a great option rate-wise, but an easy way to have a chip and pin card for those situations where nothing else will do.

Last Sunday's Los Angeles Times Travel section listed a link to a FlyerTalk forum that discusses this issue. The link is www.lat.ms/11cj2BH (those are two ones in the link). On the forum there is a link to a Google document that lists a number of chip and pin cards (plus some that are chip and signature) along with information about annual fees, rewards programs, etc. You might check that out to see if they have a card that suits you.