I've been to UK, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, France, Spain, Switzerland, and Italy, over the past few years.

To be clear: I've never had a problem with a swipe card being accepted at any place that had a Visa or MC logo, or where I asked (without showing the back of the card first) whether they took Visa or MC. (Typicaly I used Visa for gas and groceries, MC for everything else.)

I did have one restaurant in Copenhagen about three years ago tell me "only Danish cards" when I asked them if they accepted credit cards. (Which implied that it was more specific than just Euoprean chip cards in that case, that there was something incompatible between Danish credit cards and even ones from elsewhere in Europe, on that restauarnt's card machine anyway. Or maybe they required a Danish equivalent of a "zip code" or a Danish phone number to get authorization?)

This is not to say that I was able to pay MC/Visa for everything. Just that I was able to figure out whether I could without them knowing whether my card was swipe or chip ahead of time...

I was in a small shop in London last month and the sales clerk refused to accept my Visa after noticing the lack of chip. The explanation was that the company's insurance company would not cover them for fraudulent card use for non-chip cards. It was not related to the difference between debit and credit cards. This is the only trouble I've had in hundreds of transactions although many vendors do first try to enter my card into their chip reader.

The continued increase in credit card fraud was a topic of a special report in the news that week, so there could be a corresponding increase in the difficulty using non-chip cards.

Thanks for asking this question. I was planning to try to get a chip card for future travel but it sounds as if the question has been answered here.

Note however that by refusing to accept a non-chip card, they're violating their merchant agreement.

Even worse, they're losing business! I don't normally carry a lot of cash, so if they can't process an American Visa/MC at all, I would probably have to go elsewhere.

Europe has a serious organized crime problem. It because so prevalent that Visa and Mastercard needed the chip to keep clerks from skimming card numbers. To entice merchants into using the new technology they stopped covering fraudulent swipe transactions. I wouldn't be surprised if liability insurance plans followed that.

Long and short of is, more crime in the EU, coupled with a lot of post WWII data collection laws that generally keep the credit card companies from running the same kinds of sophisticated anti-fraud profiling programs we have in the US.

Thank you everyone for your input.

Yes, merchants should take the cards but some are refusing which doesn't help if you're the one standing there with little cash and a card they won't accept even though it is perfectly valid. Especially if you are in a country whose language you don't speak and the person on the other side has limited English!

Carrying extra cash seems to defeat the purpose of having credit cards in my mind.

As my bank here won't issue replacement cards with the chip I guess I'll just have to be extra careful about where I try and make a purchase, check before hand whether there is an ATM in close proximity if I need it and deal with it as best I can.

I can't comment on whether there is more credit card fraud in Europe than other parts of the world, but most card issuers in the UK have very sophisticated anti-fraud programs - I have had a Visa card cloned twice in recent years and on both occasions my card issuer detected the "out of the norm" transactions straight away and shut the card down. On other purchases, I have had phone calls from the card company to check that transactions were genuine - this is from both US-based issuers (MBNA) and UK ones.

Magnetic strips are not accepted in London
 

In London for the weekend and have already been to three stores (Argos, Superdrug and Nandos) and none would accept my US Visa/MC. I do have a Barclay account in the UK with chip and pin and that saved the day.

I will be visiting the Oxo Tower restaurant tomorrow evening and will see if I have a similar experience.

Yes The Oxo Tower restaurant does accept US magnetic strip cards. Great restaurant!

I was recently in Toulouse, France. I could not rent a bycycle from the self service stands all over the city. I called CitiBank and asked if they could issue me a card wit a chip for European travel. Phone agent had no idea what I was talking about.

Funny, I just spent 73.52 GBP on my Schwab Visa at Argos two weeks ago. No chip on my Schwab.

Go to Deutsche Bank and get a loadable.

Go here before you leave the USA:

http://www.visaeurope.com/personal/y...epaid/main.jsp

Go to Barclay's and get an Oyster Visa.

Or don't expect to use some services. Just like if you go to Dollar General and have every credit card but a Visa. They don't take Master Card. Or Fred's that does not take any credit card unless it is a PIN transaction debit card. There are many places in the USA that do not take all forms of payment and the rest of the world is no different.

Maybe I'm just dense but I can't figure out how to actually order a card off that Visa Europe site. There's a page of description, one of FAQ, and a flash-based card creation page that when I click through to create a card says:

"Hope you enjoyed the card design demo. Come back soon for card design competitions and other exciting creative stuff."

The whole site seems rather like an advertisement for the entire prepaid youth visa product (presumably sponsored by various banks) rather than a place to purchase the actual cards. I hope I'm wrong - I've been looking for something like this for quite a while!

Are you a resident of a European country? If not, how did you get one of these cards?

The Barclays Oyster is just for UK residents.

The visaeurope site is just a promotional site. Once you click on the get a card link, it simply directs you to a list of banks that issue cards. (again, you have to be a resident of the country to apply)

I wouldn't know where to start with Deutsche bank.

Just returned from Amsterdam and Italy. Drove all over Italy, stayed in three different cities and never had a problem with my U.S. Bank Worldperks Visa(last trip for that one before Flexperks) and My Capital One Master Card. Both alos worked in automatic toll booths.

I live in the EU 6 months out of the year. I am not a permanent resident of any country but the USA. I travel extensively in every country in the EU and some that are not a member. As I have said repeatedly, you will NOT have a problem using a swipe card anywhere except where they do NOT take CREDIT CARDS. If a business only takes there equivelant of an ATM card then it won't take yours! If they take credit cards, they WILL take yours!

For those of you out there that simply do not know how to or cannot understand or make the cashier understand (some teenagers there are just as dumb as some in the USA are and are not old enough to realize that there was a time when credit cards were swipe only!) that your card is swipe only. I will help you out with a link momentarily.

I have both US, UK and IE bank accounts and have never been forced to use any of them for a transaction. I use the cash back no forex usa cards when traveling.