Been reading about the "chip and pin" credit cards and want to see if anyone has had any problems using American credit cards in restaurants, to buy tickets, groceries, etc. I have a Wells Fargo Visa. Thanks.
Posted by
Bloomington, IL, USA
9363 posts
No problems. The only reported problems have been in using automated gas pumps, or buying tickets from kiosks. Buy your tickets at the window and it will be fine. No problems using credit cards for purchases, as long as you have notified your bank that you will be traveling so they don't freeze your account.
Posted by
Seattle, WA
1317 posts
Yup, what Nancy said. We couldn't get our American credit card to buy train tickets at the self-service machines in Paris or Italy, but the ticket agents had no such problems. The credit card also worked perfectly well at all restaurants that would take it. So in short, as long as you are dealing with a human being and not a machine, you'll be fine. One side note - you might want to check into how much of a foreign transaction fee Wells Fargo charges. We used Capital One Visa which has no fees at all, but some credit cards can charge 3% or more.
Posted by
OP
castro valley
3 posts
Thanks for the info! What a relief. Yes Wells does charge 3% as do all the other cards I have. Oh well, not going to let that limit my spending or spoil my vacation. Thanks again!
Posted by
Copenhagen, Denmark
265 posts
And the reason why machines don't work, is that you have to authorize the charge via a PIN, and on these machines, the PIN is validated by the chip. No chip means no possibility for PIN validation.