Originally Posted by
princeville
FWIW, I've used unmanned machines for train and subway tickets, tolls and gas stations in Europe with no issue - they don't ask for a PIN nor do they require a signature. Off the top of my head, in the past couple years I know I've used unmanned machines in Spain, France, Norway, UK, Italy and Slovenia. As they were travel expenses (except fuel), I probably would have been using my CSR, which is not contactless enabled and I don't have a PIN set up for it.
It varies by country and vendor. I live here and can tell you with 100% certainty that NMBS/SNCB (Belgian rail) ticket machines won't take an American card without a PIN, nor will NS (Dutch rail) or any unattended gas station in B or NL I've ever tried. Neither did any of three Italian gas pumps last week. Now that American debit cards are EMV-enabled, it's not that big of an issue for occasional visitors--except to unattended French gas pumps--since American debit cards generally support online PIN, they're a usable backup.
In the UK, though, it's entirely a non-issue. The only place my CSR hasn't worked in the UK was at an unattended Tesco gas station, but neither a German MC nor a Belgian Maestro card worked there either because they only accept UK-issued cards
Originally Posted by
tmiw
That said, Apple/Google Pay are considered "authenticated" and typically aren't subject to any countries' contactless caps as mentioned above.
The look on the clerk's face when I used Google Pay for a kr 10000 (over $1000) hotel bill in Norway was priceless. Meanwhile the terminals at my local supermarket refuse any contactless payment over €25... and another one has an oddball Maestro implementation where you tap and PIN.