U.S. travelers abroad are between a chip and a hard place.
Other countries have so thoroughly embraced a more secure credit card technology called "chip and PIN" that tourists have found their American-style plastic doesn't work at some places overseas. The problem is particularly acute at automated kiosks, but travelers also can run into merchants who won't accept their cards.
Retired teacher John Morris of Denver encountered the problem in September after arriving at Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris. A train ticket into the city cost less than 10 euros, but the automated kiosk required exact change or a credit card with chip-and-PIN technology -- neither of which Morris had. There was a ticket booth with a human teller where Morris could have used his American Express card, but it was swarmed with other travelers.
"I asked some people near the front of the line how long they'd been waiting, and they said two hours," recalled Morris, 70. "I couldn't find anywhere that would make change. Even Air France, my airline, refused to change a 20-euro note."
Morris -- frustrated, angry and hot, because the station was sweltering -- wound up taking a taxi into Paris, a trip that cost 60 euros, or about $80.
Liz Weston
It's not that your credit cards are useless overseas. Most merchants and travel providers in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Canada -- the areas that have adopted the smart-card technology -- still accept U.S. credit cards, says Odysseas Papadimitriou, who travels to Europe a few times a year and is the chief executive of credit card comparison site Card Hub.
But U.S. cards, which rely on older magnetic-strip technology, simply won't work in machines that require users to punch in a personal identification number, or PIN, that's matched against a computer chip embedded in the card. U.S. debit cards won't work in these machines either, because they lack the all-important chip.
You could find yourself:
- Trapped in a parking lot that relies on automated kiosks to exit.
- Unable to buy gas at a pay-at-the-pump station.
- Prevented from buying bus, subway or rail tickets.
- Stopped at toll booths that require chip-and-PIN cards.
Some travelers report they've also encountered problems with clerks who don't know how to process a swipe-card transaction or merchants who refuse to accept U.S. cards, believing they're less secure. Such problems seem to be more common as time passes and fewer people are familiar with the older technology, especially in Europe, said Dan Ray, the editor-in-chief of CreditCards.com.
"The odds are greater now that you'll have some trouble," Ray said. "Europeans are less likely to have the machinery or the people who are eager to process your card."
Your debit card will work in overseas ATMs, but you may want to shorten your PIN if it's longer than four digits. Many foreign ATMs don't accept longer PINs. Also, foreign ATM keypads often don't have letters. If the only way you remember your PIN is by typing in a word into the keypad (say your password is 9-6-7-3, but you remember it by typing in the corresponding letters W-O-R-D), you should memorize the digits before you go.
True chip-and-PIN cards are hard to find in the U.S., credit card experts note. Diners Club is replacing its customers' cards with chip-and-PIN versions, Papadimitriou said, and Wells Fargo is testing a version. (Don't count on getting one, even if you're a Wells Fargo customer. When I called the bank recently to request one, the phone rep had no idea what I was talking about. After talking to a supervisor, he said I wasn't eligible.)
