Originally Posted by Lost_Luggage_in_SEA

I'm sorry but I'm confused. OP says the MC is "touch less". Touchless the same thing as contactless. So if the MC is "touch less", it's also capable of contactless payment.

Perhaps what OP means by the second question is "suppose I try to use my MC for contactless payment and it doesn't work even though it should work, does that mean I won't be able to pay at all because the establishment accepts contactless only?" The answer in my experience is that, usually, you can swipe or insert the card (eg. in a hotel, restaurant or most grocery stores) but it's a slower process because an employee has to help you (eg. to find the piece of paper you need to sign). However, there are places (eg. London buses and the toilets in Dartmouth UK I mentioned in an earlier post) where if contactless payment doesn't work, you have no reasonable alternatives (London buses don't take cash). I'm sure most tourists never run into this problem as it depends on where you go, how you travel etc. but I've experienced it and others do too. It's not common for a contactless card to not work for me: maybe 1% of the times I try to use it in Europe, but it happens.

(A note to people from places with a more modern banking system than that of the United States. Afaik, all US credit cards, including all of mine, are chip and signature. You can get a pin for a US credit card and all of mine have a pin but by default, they use chip and signature even if you have a pin. So if I go into a grocery store in Europe and insert the card rather than use contactless, the machine produces a bunch of papers, one of which requires my signature made in front of a store employee. This is a problem if no store employee is available to help or the machine has a paper jam.)