Even though chip & sign is not the norm in Europe, it never fazed any of the clerks there. Whenever I needed to sign the receipt, the clerk would nonchalantly hand it to me with a pen.
I was just in Spain for several weeks, including days in Morocco and Gibraltar. Everything was tap, and the couple of times my MasterCard didn’t work the first time, I just stuck it in the slot and received a charge slip to sign. Not a PIN in sight. I used my travel debit card at ATMs, again tap but with my usual US PIN. No problem.
I don’t think you can - you have to get the station attendant to do it.
I’ve had clerks in Germany look at me, confused, and say, “it says you need to sign this”. That wasn’t a problem, though.
I’ve also had machines fail to work unless i could provide a PIN.
I suppose I’m piling on at this point, but I’m in Europe quite a bit:
In my experience, Amex is accepted more and more. When I first started traveling for work in the early 2000s I had a lot more trouble with Amex. Now, and especially in the UK, I’d say it’s mostly accepted. As you go east in Europe I feel like it’s less and less accepted.
All my credit cards have always worked and I’ve never had a PIN on any of them. If they tap, fine. If they don’t, swipe and scan works. The clerks see all this enough it’s fine and they know what to do.
To get cash I always use my debit card. For this (and only this) I do inform my bank. However, I keep two debit cards because once in a blue moon some random EU ATM will decide to eat my card. Happens maybe one trip in 10, but it’s a curse I bear. Anecdotally that’s not happened when I told the bank. I’ve used my ATM card on five continents, which I find kind of remarkable.
Warn him about taxis. Taxis are evil in almost the entire world. I cannot tell you how many times* this has happened to me:
“This is a work trip. I need to confirm you can take a credit card.”
Yes, of course. This isn’t the middle ages.
“Great. Thanks.”
2/3 of the way to the destination the driver tells me the card reader is broken and I have to pay cash. They WILL stop at an ATM and ask you to get cash. This happened to me in Israel and through some miracle I managed to get cash from an ATM operating in Hebrew.
Taxi drivers like cash and will lie to get it.
*This won’t be a problem with the black cabs in the UK. They’re way more professional than anywhere else, in my experience.
I’ve had this happen at home in Toronto, which fully explains the rise of Uber.
I see this:
Which has a whole list of “one of these conditions”, basically full time student (18+) living in London or going to school full time there. No allowance for visitors?
And…
Seems to suggest the only age discount is to add a child 11-15yo on your Oystercard.
So, can a tourist/visitor get the student discount? (And for myself, is there a seniors’ discount?)
I saw something similar with the MetroCard or its replacement in NYC. Even though I’m a senior, as a short-term visitor there was no simple way to get the senior’s discount. However, paying with my phone was good.
Yeah, that’s what the website says; it’s finding a station attendant that might be trouble.
Yes, this is the discount I’m after.
For everyone else on the trip we can just use a credit card or phone in place of a dedicated Oyster card, but I’m reluctant to give the 11 year old a credit card. I found an old Oyster card which should work.
It probably has less than £5 on it, but TFL won’t let me make an account to check the value of the card because I’m not coming from a UK IP address. I should be able to create an account using a VPN with a UK exit node, but I don’t use a commercial VPN, and I haven’t bothered yet to find a free or trial one or borrow one.
It would also be nice to get the card in an account so I can top it up before we go. I know I can do that at the station in the airport, but one less thing to worry about after a 10 hour flight is good.
The child has their own Oyster with the discount on.
No, and no. Residents only.
No reason why that should be a problem. There will be several at the gateline
Indeed. Although I may feel for Uber drivers getting a raw deal, Taxis deserve everything they get.
I haven’t taken a taxicab in a long while but when I did, they didn’t use GPS, so I had to direct them how to get to my home. And I never knew in advance just how much the ride would cost; the meter would tick up when we were stuck in traffic or if the driver took a wrong turn. Plus I’ve experienced the whole, “Sorry, the credit card terminal is broken; cash only” bit.
So I appreciate that when I take an Uber, I know in advance exactly how much it will cost and never have to provide directions.
Taxi drivers all use GPS these days.
I routinely pay for taxis with a credit card
Yes, i do pay extra if they get stuck in traffic. But that seems fair.
Weirdly, it’s cheaper for me to take a taxi home from the airport than to take Uber. It’s also often cheaper for short trips around the city. Also, and this applies more to the airport, there’s a line of cabs there, and one of them will take me. I never get the “your driver is still 5 minutes away… your driver hasn’t come in half an hour, do you want to cancel?” thing that sometimes happens with Uber.
So i still take cabs somewhat often.
Yeah, I still almost always use taxis at airports.
The one exception, surprisingly enough, is my home airport. That’s because I live in a distant suburb that city taxis don’t want to go. Whereas Uber or Lyft have no problem — for a price.
Same here. Found this out last July.
Me too.
The situation here is that taxis from the city to the airport are metered but from the airport to the city are flat-rate. Car services are flat-rate both ways. The flat-rate is always cheaper than an Uber.