I have a number of European credit cards, with one thing in common - they all normally require PIN numbers.

"Unfortunately", I live and travel in Asia, where most places assume credit card need signing only. The waiters usually come back and ask me to come to their counter to type it in. This is starting to become a bit of a hassle (as opposed UK, where most restaurants have portable machines that they bring to the table, or in Sweden, where PIN is not needed for restaurant transactions). What worse is, as a mile and points collector, I have way more card than I can remember PINs for.

But there should be a way to bypass the PIN and authorize the good old way by signing. This I know as maybe 30% of the restaurants either never asks me for PIN, or manages to skip the PIN when I tell them I don't have a PIN. However, most waiters are not very experienced, and I want to know what I need to tell them to be able to bypass the PIN.

So anyone here knows this trick? What button need to be pressed on the machine? Is it different between different machines? How do you manage travelling with PIN enabled cards?