I just returned from a trip to the Netherlands. And catching up with this thread. I have no EMV cards, so I had to make do with magnetic stripe cards only.
Mostly it was okay, except the train stations do not accept magnetic stripe credit cards at all. Even though
http://www.ns.nl/en/travellers/arran...hasing-tickets says
Payment for tickets is accepted in coins and with debit card with (Maestro and V Pay logo). At Schiphol Airport and Amsterdam Centraal you can also pay with credit card (only MasterCard and Visa)
At Schiphol they have signs posted that they do not actually take the cards. Of course I don't know what happens when you have a chip of any kind, since I didn't get that far. I had to pay cash.
There were a few other places that I had to resort to cash, but mostly smaller things like street vendors and the grocery store.
I got cash (Euros) before I left at my bank. That was very expensive, but I figured I might need some for cases like this. While I was there, they showed me a card that is some sort of prepaid debit card with a chip that can hold multiple foreign currencies. You can use it at an ATM to get cash and they can replace it if lost or stolen no matter where you are. This sounds better than taking lots of cash (which unfortunately is necessary until I can get an EMV card). Alas, it was not yet available.
I had no problems with DCC, by the way. Only twice did the terminal ask "USD or Euro"? and I could choose.