Amex, to the best of my knowledge, does not issue chip and pin cards unless it has changed recently. You mean SNCF does not take Amex? And I'm almost sure they will take swipe cards at Schiphol.....

Amex certainly does issue chip & PIN cards in various European countries.

I don't think NS accepts Amex at all anywhere.

Amex actually used to issue their blue card with an EMV chip for a short period in the US. It failed, and so they discontinued it.

I do not recall that American Express ever intended to distribute POS terminals to authenticate Blue cards. It was positioned for online shopping near the peak of the Dot Com bubble. Here is a nostalgic article from the era when the card was introduced in 1999:

http://articles.latimes.com/1999/oct...iness/fi-19931

You're probably right...you know what I was thinking...Amex does not allow DCC on its cards and I simply thought Amex just wanted to be different.

I still don't understand this...what was the point of the chip, then?

Concerning the French railroads, a bit of searching found, I think, the rule they are enforcing. From http://voyages-sncf.mobi/zg838o5.c:

Article 3. CONDITIONS DES PRESTATIONS FERROVIAIRES

3.1 RETRAIT DES BILLETS DE TRAIN

Nous attirons votre attention sur le fait que la carte bancaire ayant servi au paiement Vous sera demandée pour retirer votre billet en Borne Libre Service, aux guichets des gares ou en Boutiques SNCF. Pour cela, il Vous sera demandé de saisir le code confidentiel associé à cette carte.
De ce fait, il est à noter que les cartes virtuelles ne pourront être utilisées pour retirer votre billet. De même, les cartes sans puce, telles que American Express et certaines cartes étrangères, ne sont pas acceptées.

Translation:

Article 3. CONDITIONS OF RAIL SERVICES

3.1 Collection of train tickets

We draw your attention to the fact that, if credit card is used for payment, you will be asked to collect your ticket at a kiosk, at a station ticket office or a SNCF Boutique. To do this, you will be asked to enter the PIN associated with this card. Thus, it is noted that virtual cards [??] can not be used to collect the ticket. Similarly, cards without a chip such as American Express and some foreign cards are not accepted.

****

Concerning the Dutch railways, they actually had a sign at the NS ticket desk at Schiphol that only cards with chips are accepted as payment. Next time I go, I'll try to take a picture of it.

Marketing, according to this article from 2002:

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/56/wth.html

...but by 2003 this author found a benefit...

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Data-Storag...ueChip-Safety/

At one time there was a fashion to allow card holders to generate temporary account numbers linked to their card account. The idea was that online purchases could be made with an account number limited to certain number of transactions, or to a small amount of money, or with a close expiration date, and this would protect the consumer from merchants who might run extra charges or parties who might intercept the number on the internet.

In fact, this was one of the features of the American Express Blue card mentioned elsewhere in my previous post. Some banks still offer this feature, but American Express has dropped it.

Some countries have/will be issued AMEX cards with Chip & PIN. Notably:

AMEX Canada
AMEX UK
AMEX Netherlands

Your memory is good. The emv feature had had some internal debate about offering an inhome terminal for authentication but cost and technical problems killed that quickly. In the end the card was just a gimmick. The only benefit that could have existed would have been use abroad, but Blue was not positioned in that way. it was really an online pitch of a frothy product at a frothy time.

No surprise it was a bust.

A few months back, I used my USA issued CapitalOne Visa in a Dutch rail machine. The card does have a PIN associated with it. I don't believe there is a chip.

I can confirm AMEX Canada has started issuing Chip & Pin cards which also include an RFID tag as of about a month ago.

I'm not sure if this has extended to all of their products yet but I can confirm the AMEX AeroplanPlus Platinum.

Yes, I confirm as well.. Just got my new charge card (the last one in my wallet to become chipped).

I believe AMEX was forced to add chips though, as the entire country's system moved to chip & pin. They tried putting up a fight last year but ultimately they had to comply.

Now all you guys have to do is mandate that as of 01/01/2012, only chip and pin cards will be accepted in Canada and the European should do the same. Let's see what the arrogant American banking system does then.