and where is this thread?

I have never had a merchant refuse a magnetic strip card and I travel all over the world. Sometimes I have needed to remind them how to use a magnetic strip card, but never had it rejected, if I showed them where the slide strip was on their hand-held doohickey.

The thread is here in flyertalk...emv cards in the USA and the information is scattered in other threads.

Try using a non chipped card at Schiphol Airport to buy a Dutch railroad ticket; as a matter of fact, it is reported although I haven't encountered it that it is getting more difficult to use a non chipped card anywhere in Holland unless it is a place that caters to tourists.

Most of my travel, I will admit it, is confined to the UK and France and I too have not run into a problem for the most part but people who have visited Vancouver somewhere here have reported going to McDonald's and not being able to use one of the archaic American credit cards.

???
Mcdonalds in Canada uses the ipp320 which HAS a magstripe reader

Do you seriously think these are accurate terms in this case?

You keep using those words

Look...I just report on what I have read. More and more people are reporting difficulties in some places, but not all, in using the magnetic strip cards in various places in the world. Like I have said, and yes I know we're talking about Canada here, but try to use a magnetic strip card only card in Holland or in various places in Scandanavia and yes I have read people I believe in the Vancouver area complaining of difficulties in using their magnetic strip cards at a McDonald's.

The fact is the technology has advanced and in certain respects, American credit cards have not kept up with the latest technology. Is it a big problem? Probably not at present but every year, more and more people report difficulties in various places in using American credit cards.

Don't kill the messenger. In my travels, I have run only into one place where I had difficulty in using a magnetic strip card in the UK in London and several times in the Netherlands.

I'm sorry if you feel the word archaic is too strong but it is an increasing problem that doesn't seem to be going away.

I don't doubt the veracity of your accounts. But the words you chose imply a value judgement about the technology. I'm simply pushing back to say that I don't consider the European version of credit cards to be an advancement. Different, yes. But not necessarily better. And the fact that it is different does not in and of itself make the magnetic stripe version out-dated or "archaic."

The security level of a chip card is much greater than that of a stripe. The latter can be scanned by a machine that is out of your control. The chip card is more advanced in its technology and cannot be copied while the stripe has been compromised. In that sense it has become "antiquated". Credit card fraud is a serious issue and stripe-only cards are at greatest risk.

I encounter more problems using European credit cards in North America than vice versa. Get over it.

OK, what about the risk that with virtually any POS, the chip can be easily bypassed without even the merchant realizing it many times?
(insert a non chip card 3 times, potentially a real one, then swipe the fraudulent one when the machine says 'chip error: use magstripe'. This has been true for BOC/HSBC machines in HK and TD/Moneris/globalpayments machines in Canada.)

You don't even need the magstripe, just the numbers. Card not present payment, somewhat higher disagio, but hey, if it is fraudulent in the first place, they don't care that much.

I would imagine that a manual transaction would be much harder to pull off in front of a cashier than what I posted above?

Is this true? It was my understanding that if you try to use a chipped card in a pos terminal equipped for chip, the transaction will not go through.

Cannot comment on every terminal, but I have never experienced this anywhere. I have one amex card with a chip that does not scan sometimes and swipes fine.

Many restaurants still swipe cards away from the table, and there seems to be no issue with them.

Although the chip and pin transition is almost complete in Canada (almost all cards are chipped) you shouldn't have a problem using a foreign card not chip&pin enabled. Although it will be interesting to see how this will change in a few years... I know most esso stations are being upgraded that if you pay at the pump, it must have a chip (the blue pumps). The only problem you may encounter is merchants who will be unwilling to swipe if you don't present a chip card. This shouldn't be as much of a problem now though, because the old "swiping" days are still fresh in people's minds. I think in a few years its going to be though

True, if you swipe first.
If the machine cannot read a chip and you insert.
Try again (1 or two times)
The next time, 'CHIP ERROR, USE MAGSTRIPE'
This is easy to byypass as the cashier cannot see if the card has a chip or not when the card is inside the POS.
You can put the card the other way and the magstripe will be read as the pump cannot detect a chip.
You may or may not have to insert the card again, but it can be done.
As well, the machines still say 'INSERT/SWIPE CARD' afaik.