Contactless credit card for Italy & Europe

If you haven’t read this article please do: https://blog.ricksteves.com/cameron/2022/05/europe-technology/. My credit card company doesn't issue contactless credit cards so I'll pay by accessing my wallet on my iPhone.

In the last month we've charged everything with both touchless and chip cards at all types of establishments in Liguria and Tuscany. No one bats an eye for either method. Touchless seems still to be in the minority.

Haven’t had any trouble so far with chip card, but there has been a bigger push for cash this trip. I wonder if it has anything to do with the exchange rate being so low or maybe it’s left over pandemic stuff.

I have been using contactless pay (Apple Pay) through a pretty wide swath of Europe since 2016 with virtually 100% acceptance. The only time I wasn't able to use contactless pay was at hotel checkouts and the like, where the single charge exceeded the Visa/merchant limits placed on Taping, and I had to physically insert the card.

I still carry a couple of hundred Euro in my pocket to maybe purchase some fruit or a Herring sandwich at the market.

@ Carol now retired in her London, May 1-8 thread posted this -

"Cash is not needed or often not accepted. Contactless credit card essential"

I still carry a couple of hundred Euro in my pocket to maybe purchase some fruit or a Herring sandwich at the market.

That's a pretty expensive herring

Nigel, all I know is, you never want to be caught short of cash if the truck is offering a big slab of Herring served on a classic Brötchen.

Or, to add to that, a fresh roast pork sandwich with cracklings, it'd be a shame to be unprepared at the market.

When I was in Italy in September, Tap was encouraged, but the terminal still had a slot to insert the card.

It would have to be a pretty small vendor to only have tap or contactless, or at least one that does not deal with tourists. With the pandemic waning, cash is coming back into vogue based on recent reports.

After all, what vendor will flat out refuse to make a sale?

If you have a credit card that does not have the symbol shown in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY2q-26-hbY
call your card issuer and ask for one. Brand of card does not matter.

I have two of my cards saved in my Google Pay and have been using that to tap for payment. Once or twice I used my actual card (not tap/contactless) so I inserted in and it worked totally fine. Last night at dinner the couple next to us didn't have a tap card and they inserted it in the handheld machine with no problems (this was in Rome).