I try always to be fair. My problem at CDG may not have been necessarily the fault of the card rather when the change of pin takes effect. USAA may use the same system as Barclay and I should have tried the old pin too.
As I've been saying all along, in the scheme of things, I shouldn't care if the card is chip and signature or chip and pin or even non emv. The only question here remains that my card be compatible 100% of the time when travelling outside the USA; not 99.7% of the time as visa proudly claims or whatever. This whole thrust about emv, of course, is in some sense misguided. EMV will not stop credit card fraud; it will switch to online fraud as it has been doing for some time now. It will cut down on card is present fraud, chip and pin somewhat better than chip and signature but so what. I have zero liability anyway.
For example, just an example, it is pretty well known that the Netherlands is among the worst offenders in giving magnetic strip cardholders a hard time. The Dutch National Railroad only has one place where a magnetic strip card can be used i.e. a few windows at Centraal Station. When I arrive at Schiphol next time I visit Amsterdam, and step up to buy my train ticket into town, will my chip and signature card work either in the machines or at the windows? This I blame on mc and visa (and Amex too) for not having any way of enforcing their rules that all cards must be honored and when somebody complains to them that their card wasn't honored, they tell them next time tell the merchant they MUST accept the card. Somehow I think telling that to a French automated gas pump on a Sunday afternoon won't be very effective.
This whole 350 pages is not about how wonderful emv is or how we're screwed if the USA goes to chip and signature rather than chip and pin, it is about one thing and one thing only. Will my card work without hassles everywhere I try it. The answer my friends is NO. Visa, MC, get off your collective rear ends and make it happen.