I live in the EU 6 months out of the year. I am not a permanent resident of any country but the USA. I travel extensively in every country in the EU and some that are not a member. As I have said repeatedly, you will NOT have a problem using a swipe card anywhere except where they do NOT take CREDIT CARDS. If a business only takes there equivelant of an ATM card then it won't take yours! If they take credit cards, they WILL take yours!

For those of you out there that simply do not know how to or cannot understand or make the cashier understand (some teenagers there are just as dumb as some in the USA are and are not old enough to realize that there was a time when credit cards were swipe only!) that your card is swipe only. I will help you out with a link momentarily.

I have both US, UK and IE bank accounts and have never been forced to use any of them for a transaction. I use the cash back no forex usa cards when traveling.