Another report of mine about our recent Lisbon/Porto experience. I feel like I’m really reporting back on experiences that help settle the various anxieties that I had prior to the trip :) Hahaha.
Ok, so one of my initial worries was about how to pay and how much cash to take out. Like y’all have experienced, tap-to-pay is really ubiquitous in Lisbon and Porto and yes, there are a very few experiences where cash is needed or where cards need to be swiped instead of tapped.
We have Apple Card (a Goldman Sachs mastercard); PenFed credit card (visa); and husband also has US Bank (I think it’s a visa). All have zero foreign transaction fee and all can be added to the digital wallet of the iPhone and Apple Watch.
I had almost zero problems with using my Apple Card which was the one I used most of the time. I used tap-to-pay most of the time and I think the only places I needed to swipe was at the metro station.
One odd experience though, but it was resolved by using another card:
- I used my Apple Card to buy tickets/trips on the Porto metro and initially that worked fine; this was a swipe experience as tap-to-pay is not available in those machines. But, when a few days later I went to add more trips to the metro card, the machine asked for a password, so I pressed 0000 and that was rejected. I restarted the process and when it asked me for password, I press Cancel. Sometimes, pressing Cancel will advance to the next screen, but this time, pressing Cancel really just cancelled my entire transaction. So rather, than fuss more with my Apple Card, I used my PenFed credit card and it went through without asking me for password. shrug don’t know what was going on.
Overall, I feel like it was easy to navigate Lisbon, Porto, and Sintra with only credit card. From what I can tell, at least those three places in Portugal widely accept credit card.
I know decades ago, credit card or debit card usage for payment was not common in much of Europe. Has this changed or is it changing now?
We did carry some cash and where cash is probably easier to use than credit card is at local markets (the open stall markets for veggies, for example), a few places advertised cash only like one restaurant we ate at.
I also learnt that when credit or debit card is not accepted, the sign (at least for English readers) that is communicated is “No Multibanco” or a slash across the MB logo. At first I thought that just mean no ATM available but no, it really means no cards accepted. :)
And finally, we were eating at this family-run pasteria where one of the employees (owner??) was really friendly and didn’t speak much English. We didn’t realize there was a lower limit for credit card usage until after our breakfast we approached the counter and saw a sign that suggested cards only accepted if cost of meal is 5 Euros or up. I started signally that we can buy an extra something to make it up to 5 Euros, but the retailer was so friendly, waved his hand which I read as something like “No worries” and just accepted our tap-to-pay credit card. I think for 2 drinks and 2 or 3 pastries the cost was like 4.50 Euros. I keep thinking, there is nowhere in the US that I have been or lived in where you can get something like this for 4.50 Euros. In fact, I’m sitting in a cafe back in the States and the cost of my plain black coffee alone is about $3!!