Apple Pay transaction limit

Your contactless limit is set by the acquiring institution (ie the bank used by the merchant), not by your home bank. In France it's €50 in most cases (some terminals allow higher contactless transactions but prompt for a PIN).

For larger transactions you will need your physical card.

Just a note - I understand your card has a PIN. For cards without PINs (I believe many US cards don't use PINs for transactions) the terminal will prompt for signature.

Thanks Simon. I am still unclear about how folks manage when they say they are only using their phone and not taking a physical card with them. What am I missing? Please and thanks:)

I take my physical card, but I keep it with my Passport , inside my neck wallet (under my clothes).
We have paid hotel bills with Tap Pay, so I'm not aware of a limit . Thanks for bringing it up, tho, because I need to check that.
Safe travels!

Claire, I'd say lately, about 10% of the time, my ApplePay wont work here at home. So yeah, I couldn't depend on it abroad without a card too.

I’m not sure about limits on the cards I use through Apple Pay, so thanks for this info. I will double check everything before I go back to Europe, hopefully next year. I always have at least 2 physical credit cards from different banks when traveling, even though I tap and pay with my phone whenever possible. Good thing I had the cards earlier this year in London, since I lost my phone halfway through my trip.

I do always take a physical card as well when traveling. They are required on occassion for high value transactions, and I have sometimes experience a contactless phone transaction declined and when I tap the physical card its accepted.

Basically only use my phone. But I do have to pull out the credit card out of my wallet when I’m checking into hotels, or if I was to make a large purchase. What people are telling you is on a day-to-day basis they’re only using phones are Apple Pay because lunch dinner, etc. does not cost that much money

Several months ago I read a post on flyertalk where a traveller didn’t take credit cards anymore because everything could be done with his phone and was rather upset when he got to the Marriott and they wouldn’t check him in . The problem was Apple Pay wouldn’t authorize that $2000 hotel bill. oh well he figured something out but you do need to take a card back up. Do not just assume your phone can do everything. I saw a guy at the airport who couldn’t get on a plane because he thought the photo of his drivers license was all he needed. he kept explaining to the TSA how he no longer carried a wallet and the agent seem totally unimpressed

I'm another who always has at least one back-up credit card with me, although I use Apple Pay whenever I can. I will say that one time I traveled to visit my daughter and accidentally forgot my wallet at home. I was gone for two weeks and was able to use Apple Pay everyplace. But that was in Minneapolis, and I wouldn't advocate doing it on purpose. :-)

Thanks everyone for the helpful replies. We will have our needed credit cards with us as well. Your answers have clarified for me the different situations when one or the other option can or needs to be used.

I use Google Wallet rather than Apple Pay, but I've yet to have payment refused using my phone. Payments have ranged up to 160 euros. Signature was required only once, for a purchase of about 78 euros. I'll admit that paying with my watch has sometimes been iffy.

We're in Europe for a long time, so 300 euro dinners aren't in the budget this year. :o) And AirBnB lodgings are all prepaid. So can't comment on larger expenditures.

My Google Wallet has a CAD$250 limit. I telephoned my bank to see if I could increase it but they told me they could not.

The limits are for protection. You wouldn’t want someone just tapping away for a high value transaction.

I use Apple Pay often. Last week it was hit or miss with using it at gas stations in Iceland. One couple asked me how to use the pumps there, so I was walking them through the process and the lady only had her phone and the pay terminal was not reading it. I told her she would have to go inside and sort it out with the cashier. I was glad that I always have my cards with me as backup.