Originally Posted by
Nothomeenough
For me, it was different in different places. In one place, if I'd had my cash advance PIN, maybe it would have worked. Everywhere else, my card was declined before I had an option for a PIN.
The Chip and Signature card requires REAL TIME communication to the bank in order to process the transaction.
The system in France, Austria, Swiss, (and now you have proven in Sweden also), uses the PIN stored on the Chip itself, and is not a real time process. i.e. the transaction is not transmitted to your bank for authorization at the time you use the card, instead, the authorization seeks the PIN info on the chip which of course has none with a Chip and Signature card.
When traveling in Europe without the Chip and PIN card, you would need to pay attention to the calendar to avoid having to fill up on Weekends and holidays, as well as to have loads of Euro coins to pay toll should you need to use toll roads. In short, you would need to PLAN AHEAD to overcome such obstacles.
Last year the Citi premium card cash advance PIN worked but this year the same Trenitalia kiosk rejected the card before even gave the PIN option.