bodory

I always use Amex on the A43 between Lyon and Chambéry then between Chambéry and Albertville.

cardesigner2000

I've used my Amex on the automatic booths on the A1 heading north of Paris towards Lille, but have the luxury of a backup carte bleue just in case. My pet peeve is a bit OT since it involves the Dutch railway automatic ticket booths which only take Dutch chip cards and those with foreign cards need stand in line at the manned ticket counter and pay an extra fee for "manual" transactions.

jbcarioca

I have not tried to use a non-chip card in France but the A8 automated booths do show the American Express card as an option. I should have tried it, but did not, while I was there for the last three weeks.

stimpy

Do you mean at the automatic gate? I use the A46 often and don't think Amex works there. I have used the A43 recently, but I don't think I looked too closely.

TravelerMax

The poster was suggesting that I look at the individual operators and I was delighted to find that Cofiroute, SANEF / SAPN, and ESCOTA all accept American Express. It appears that ASF is stll lagging in acceptance. :-)

But yes, I was interested in seeing that they take US dollars, too. Probably just to prevent traffic jams while sorting out issues with American tourists who hadn't changed money yet. :-)

bodory

Yes, automatic ones.

When going from LYS to Albertville :
- at the entrance of Chambéry
- at Ste-Hélène (few miles before Albertville)

The other way :
- at Chignin, before Chambéry
- at Bourgoin-Jallieu

Louie_LI

If you look at the individual companies' websites, there is more detail about which cards are accepted on that network. The Paris-Rhin-Rhône site lists AmEx:

http://www.aprr.fr/fr/faq/peage#_ "Comment payer le montant du péage"

I tend to prefer using the automatic machines, and my AmEx where possible. On those networks that I know take AmEx, I cannot recall getting up to the automatic machine and having to dig out my Carte Bleue. I distinctly recall seeing AmEx shown on automatic machines in the list of cards accepted.

I'd have to dig through credit card statements to figure out more precisely where I have done this, since my last autoroute experience was a very long loop down south and back up to Paris, and six months ago.

Also, a lot of the networks accept Cofinoga cards (a sort of French credit card), which also don't have chips. Cofinoga is listed on the automatic machines as well.

TravelerMax

So Louie, are you saying that (based on your comments on the Cofinoga, etc.) that the automated péages on networks that accept AmEx will take cards without chips?

And I might as well go ahead and stick this question in there for anyone - - what is the general acceptance of American Express cards at gas stations? Widely accepted? Rarely accepted? Rarely accepted in rural areas?

Thanks again to all respondents.

imagineertobe

Remember that Amex (in France at least) doesn't put chips in cards (yet), so any place that accepts Amex should have the capability of accepting a Visa/MasterCard without a chip as well.

This is related to your first question. If you go to a French supermarket to fill up or a large chain gas station, and you go to the lanes where you can pay an actual person for your gas (as opposed to swiping your card at the pump), you should be able to use an Amex and, by extension, a chip-less Visa or MasterCard (cash as well).

I'm sure that someone somewhere has decided that following this generality isn't good for their business, but in my experience I haven't stumbled upon anyone like that.

Bottom line, you should fill up during normal working hours when possible, and have backup cash for merchants/toll booths/etc. that don't want to accept your chip-less cards.

Peace.

jbcarioca

FWIW Cofinoga is a large issuer of Department store and other non-network cards, called 'White Label' (UK) and 'Private Label' (US). They issue cards for Galeries Lafayette, Carrefour and many others, and also do so in countires all over the world althogh they're based in France. Because they are so ubiquitous in France they are accepted in many non-retail locations, including the autoroutes (all of them, I think). Historically they had a big advantage because interchange (the fee card issuers receive from merchants) was much cheaper for them than for bankcards. Now interchange has dropped all over Europe, especially for Debit cards, so many of the Cofinoga-type cards are converting to bankcard membership.

This discussion is covered in several other threads. It can get extremely complex and arcane, even for people in the business.

the bottom line for users of autoroutes is to check the symbols shown beside the particular automated booth you are using (a bit hard to do in the heat of the moment but easy if you're a frequent user) to find out what cards are accepted. Chip vs non-chip, by itself, is not the final story for Autoroutes since nearly all (all?) of the automated machines actually do not use the pin capability but read the magnetic stripe. Coincidently, most of the accepted cards do have a chip. Thus, it becomes an excercise in analysis.

TravelerMax

Good to know all of this. Thank you.
I try to avoid foreign cash transactions when possible and it seems so stupid to have to "obsess" over such stuff but I find it better to be as aware as possible of what one is walking . . . Or driving into :-)

jbcarioca

Obviously we all agree. It probably seems obsessive to people who do not travel a lot. the time saved on toll roads from using the automated payments and not hauling around cash is a big motivator.

bodory

From my experience, automated or manually operated toll booths in France accept all Visa and MC with or without chip, except Electron (and its MC equivalent, if any). Amex is another story : some operators accept it, some do not.

Regarding gas station :
- automated ones do not accept non chip cards, whatever the issuer, nor they accept Electron
- rural stations usually do not accept Amex

IME, less and less stations are accepting Amex. Indeed, large network operators such as Shell have sold all their stations to independant dealers (Avia, for instance) or to networks that do buy the gas from producers and make low margins. Both of them do not accept Amex because of high fees.

Total dealers in the rural areas may not accept Amex, specially if they are not directly controlled by Total (independant dealers under Total brand).

TravelerMax

Also good to know. Thank you. Much of my time will be in rural areas. I prefer AmEx so this helps in knowing how much to plan to have on AX vs. non-AX cards.

jbcarioca

Based on EU preferences you can count of American Express losing business or them moving to chip and also vastly reduced interchange for mass convenience merchants (toll road operators, fuel stations, supermarkets mostly). Without too much question Europe is pretty rapidly moving to a two tier system for cards anyway. AEXP has traditionally only been significant in the high price/high yield part of the business (T&E, hotels, airlines, car rental,expensive restaurants) but now they really need to be able to accomodate the convenience side of the business too.

Several European banks offer cards that are triple function: 1) stored value for tiny transactions, such as Moneo; 2) debit cards for cash access and many low value transactions; 3) deferred debit (as in AEXP traditional cards) for everything else. Contactless payments are also growing quickly, as are mobile phone payments.

Soon even the US will begin to move to the future and there will be payment system harmony in the industrial world.