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SNCF tickets & non-chip US credit card

Posted by (Honolulu, HI, USA) on

We are in Nice and travel to Marseille next Tuesday. I can buy the tickets online from SNCF but cannot print them (as I did for the Hendaye-Paris tickets I purchased before leaving the US). I know I cannot buy tickets from the machine at the station with a US credit card (because of the 'chip' requirement - clearly communicated on the ticket-purchase machines). But is a 'chip' card required to retrieve tickets purchased online at those 'yellow' machines in the station?

Another option is to get cash (60 euro in coins!) and purchase tickets at the station, but that seems ... odd (akin to feeding the slots in Vegas ;-> ). And, yes, we could just stand in line but we'd rather avoid the possibly-long line if there is some better strategy.

Posted by
9110 posts

You will need a chip card to retrieve tickets from the machine. With a US card you need to go to the ticket window to get tickets purchased online.

Posted by
2876 posts

I guess the rule of thumb is that US-issued credit cards won't work in any automated credit card terminal overseas.

Makes you wonder why Visa and Mastercard don't issue 'chip' cards for travelers.

Posted by
408 posts

Thanks. We'll try the Boutique - it is fairly close. But I really was looking forward to getting 60euro in coins at the Post Office and feeding the machine those 30 coins. ;->

Is there no reasonable way for a US person to get a 'chip' card? It is more than a debit card with a PIN, I suppose. (When we were at the Alhambra we were able to use our debit card, where non-USers were using their chip credit cards, because the debit card had a PIN, but maybe that was something different....)

Posted by
9110 posts

The only US plastic that has the chip is American Express. But the catch-22 is that AE isn't widely accepted by a lot of merchants in Europe.

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