Originally Posted by reclusive46

I'm in the US a lot and I've seen many many machines in the US with the chip reader slot, just many of them are not enabled. I've used my UK Chip and Pin Amex via the chip in Century 21st in New York City.

I had a similar experience at a restaurant in the US as well though, Merchant said my card was declined, when I didn't get a text message (Amex always text me if its declined) I asked what the message was and he said it kept saying "Use Chip", I had to show him how to process an EMV transaction.

Reminds me a little of a problem in Australian restaurants. In Australia restaurants will normally have EMV machines but to save money they don't get handheld machines. This means they take your card and then press PIN-bypass and it asks for a signature instead. Unfortunately UK issuers and Canadian issuers don't allow the PIN to be bypassed, so it just says declined. I found this out after I apparently had 4 cards declined lol and asked what they hell they were doing. Now though, Restaurants will generally ask, "Does your card need a PIN?" and you then have to walk up to the counter and enter it. I get this all the time in Asia as well, Thailand mainly.