It’s one of those things in travel guides from fifteen or twenty years ago – don’t assume that you can use your Visa or Switch card in Germany (or Austria, which seems to be Upper Bavaria as far as the guides are concerned) because they’re still a bit suspicious of the whole idea of credit, like it’s money for nothing.
Assuming that this was ever true, is it still true today? Because I’m having terrible trouble getting an Austrian hotel to accept my money. It seems that they want me to turn up on the date that I have booked with actual cash, presumably stuffed in my sock or something. I asked them whether they accepted debit cards, which are as good as cash where I come from, but they shot back “Cash Only!”, in typically robust Teutonic fashion.
What kind of primitive barter economy are these people running?
In the Netherlands, ATM is the norm and credit cards the exception. I like it; with ATM, the payers uses a PIN to confirm the payment and the bill is charged to the payers account immediately. If the buyer has enough credit the payment is accepted, otherwise bounced on the spot. So with every in-store ATM-payment, an immediate quick creditcheck is excecuted. It makes it also much harder to run up debts.
With ATM, only the bank account of the payer and the bank account of the payee are involved; why add a middle man, like a creditcard company, which is basicaly in the business of finding people he can loan to, racking up interest?
Written personal checks, which are basically IOU’s, are never used or accepted over here. Cash is used less and less, and only for small purchases, say under 15 dollars.
It took me quite some time to figure out what the USA SDMB-ers meant when they were talking about “balancing my checkbook” and " having a good/bad credit history".
So maybe that’s what they mean by “cash only”? Some kind of bill payment by ATM? I have never payed a bill using an ATM in the UK, we tend to do that kind of thing with a debit card that the retailer swipes, or online, or by phone. But it would be preferable to carrying several hundred euros to Austria in my underpants.
But wait, you appear to be using the term “ATM” as we would use “debit card” in the UK. Here, “ATM” means a machine that dispenses cash (actually more often called a “cash machine”, “ATM” being an American term).
What I am asking is, it seems that this Austrian business doesn’t even accept debit cards, or any “electronic” form of payment. They apparently demand actual banknotes and coins in payment. I’m asking how common this is.
I can tell you that in the late 90s and early 00s, I travelled often to Vienna and used my credit card and debit card quite a bit to purchase food, clothes, electronics, and a wallet. I don’t know if it was because I was in the tourist areas, but I don’t remember it being a particular problem.
I’ve used my credit cards in Vienna, for the hotel and everything else, and never had a problem. If you’re having trouble with a particular hotel, take your business elsewhere.
At least in Germany it’s basically true (I haven’t been in Austria in years.) Credit cards never caught on properly - at least compared to other countries. Of course they exist and they can be used for many things but in everday life they don’t play a big role. People use more cash than in many other countries. Nowadays you can pay with a ATM/debit cards in many shops. These use a few loosely related but subtly different payment methods but unfortunately the relevant ones are national.
At least bigger hotels often take credit cards because they are actually relatively common in the travel sector but it’s not really surprising if a hotel doesn’t. Also most supermarkets and many other shops won’t take them but most will take domestic debit cards. When in doubt you can never go wrong with cash. For most payments that you make in person it’s just the easiest and most common way.
Like millions of other Germans I personally have MasterCard because it came with my bank account for free but I hardly ever use it. I have used it for a bit of online shopping but don’t think I’ve ever used the physical card.
Whatever you do, never say that out loud on either side of the border :eek:
Anecdote 1:
My stepfather lived in Munich, Germany about 12 years ago, and took out a loan from a bank to buy some furniture. (The furniture store apparently had no way to give credit to customers.)
I went with my stepfather to the bank to sign the paperwork. After signing, the loan officer reached into his breast pocket and counted out five 1,000-DM notes–the amount of the loan! :eek: Without batting an eye, my stepfather pocketed the cash and off we went to the furniture store. Definitely a bit different from how we do things in U.S.
Anecdote 2:
When I made purchased a 500-DM clock on another visit, the merchant told me that they accepted MasterCard, but that the price would be increased by 5% if I wanted to use a credit card.
In my experience (mid-1990s), most restaurants and businesses off the beaten path did not accept credit cards. On the other hand, ATMs were everywhere, and the exchange rate for ATMs was usually pretty good.
I traveled to Vienna a LOT in the early-mid 90’s (enough to cause me to find a different job) and while it was occasionally an issue in restaurants, I could pretty much use my credit card at any hotel I ever stayed at, but since I was being reimbursed, and travel arraignments were made by others, they were a bit more posh then I’d have chosen. It wouldn’t surprise me if a pension operator insisted on cash.
The Viennese I hung out with almost never used credit cards, and carried a LOT of cash. It was perfectly normal to pay a news vendor with a 1000 shilling note (worth about US$100 then) and they would make change without blinking.
I traveled in Germany in the early '90’s. If a credit card was accepted, it was more likely a Visa than MasterCard at that time. At that time, the best exchange rate we could get was through the Visa and ATM’s being the second best. We used our credit card at ATM’s (cash machines) for most everything. The only time I recall having trouble (and my memory is more than a bit fuzzy here) is that we needed to pay for a parking ticket and had to go to a Deutchbank to get what amounted to a cashier’s check. Now that was a challenge.
Is this a small family-run hotel, by any chance? Because if so it’s not at all surprising that they want to avoid handing over 1-2% of their turnover to some random merchant processor, just like small businesses elsewhere.
And Germany is the only place where I have seen a significant proportion of people settling their hotel bills in cash. At more than €300 a night, there were some impressive wads of bills being handed over.
I’ve never had this problem. I’ve visited Bavaria a couple of times a year for the last few years and have had no problem paying my hotel bills (and restaurant bills) with my Visa credit card. This was in various smallish hotels just outside Munich. I suppose the actual village could be different because it is used to foreigners - it is the location of a number of European and International research institutes.
What is wrong with bringing cash? Perhaps it is because of where I’ve been living, but I have normally travelled with $4,000 - $6,000 in various currencies when on an extended holiday.
Apart from the fear of being robbed - or just losing it! - most of us have just got out of the habit. My other objection is that I generally don’t get such a good exchange rate when I buy Euros in the UK as I do when I use the card. Visa use something very near to the mid-market rate the banks use and my card issuer doesn’t charge for foreign currency transactions.
A quick check shows that is a difference of 61 Euros on 1000 GBP!
Wow. I’m a pretty well seasoned traveler myself, but carrying that much cash on me for almost any reason blows my mind. If you lose it or are robbed you have pretty much no way of getting it back. I might keep a couple hundred on me, a thousand at the very max.
Regarding Germany what kellner said, mostly - credit cards are reasonably common (a Mastercard or Visa card comes free with a lot of current accounts, nowadays) but not used as frequently as, say, in the US.
Some aspects:
[ul]
[li]Low-margin businesses (groceries, B&B, cheap restaurants etc.) often don’t accept credit cards because the issuer’s/processor’s fees would eat their profit. Businesses that accept credit cards tend to be higher-margin or those having a significant foreigner or business traveler clientele.[/li][li]bank debit cards (the one that you use at the ATM) are widely accepted OTOH (usually they need to be part of the Maestro system). The charge appears on your current account usually on the next working day. For paying very small sums (bus tickets etc) a lot of debit cards carry a stored-value chip nowadays. [/li][li]Credit cards aren’t usually considered a debt vehicle (the balance is usually debited to your current account monthly). The usual short-term debt vehicle is a current account overdraft (on the account that your wage is paid to); longer-term debt is usually via a bank loan. Citibank was painted as basically a loan shark operation by German consumer advocates when they offered to carry debt longer on their credit cards[/li][li]Online stores usually offer credit card, direct debit (to your current account) or prepayment as payment options; some smaller ones not even credit card payment. A lot of online stores also offer payment by open invoice, at least by repeat customers.[/li][li]middle-class people mostly do pay cash and often carry a week’s or more of their out of pocket expenses in cash. (I for one usually get 500 EUR at the ATM and get new cash when I am down to 100 EUR or so). [/li][li]A lot of people deliberately eschew paying with plastic in order to not to lose sight of their expenses - there is a widespread horror of getting deep into debt; personal (consumer) bankruptcy was impossible until a few years ago (the bank owned you for 30 years) and it still takes six years of strict adherence to a court-imposed austerity and repayment plan for a consumer to get rid of his debt via the bankruptcy route. (and he’d be considered underclass, little better than a criminal, by his middle-class peers)[/li][li]The usual mode of payment of a group in a restaurant where everyone pays the server separately also doesn’t easily lend itself to credit card transactions.[/li][/ul]
My wife is German; we go to visit her family in the Frankfurt area every year. We often travel in Bavaria or Austria. Rarely if ever do we use credit. Likewise I can’t think of any instance of her parents or siblings paying for stuff with credit. I know her dad has cards because he’s used them in the US.
My parents use credit to pay for most stuff when they go to visit, but they only stay in big fancy hotels, with lots of other foreigners. I would not count on being able to use credit except under these circumstances.
I’ve never kept more than $300 or so in cash on me when traveling. I’d be totally paranoid of theft or accidental loss if I were walking around with $6,000.
