> H O M E

You know those ‘you know you’re old if’ viral e-mails we seem to get every year, giving random facts like ‘You religiously watched Saved by the Bell on a Saturday morning’ and ‘You’ve danced and scored to A flock of seagulls‘ — or, more to the point, ‘You’ve scored’? Well, I got one for y’all, and this time I get to be the baby: I have never travelled with cash.

That’s right, I’m a lucky son of… the Credit Card Era. For as long as I can remember, it’s always been possible to get fresh local currency or just buy stuff pretty much anywhere in the world using the nifty 7 sq.in. of plastic. Or so I thought. In fact, it seems that these past few days I’ve been proved wrong pretty much everywhere except at airports and train stations: my Canadian credit card is not exactly as useful as I thought it would be…

So what’s this all about? Well, Canadian (and, for that matter, US) travellers beware: it seems that the way credit card transactions work in Europe differs significantly enough as to cause some problems. Before coming on this little Euro-trip, I’d never had a chance to use my Canadian card overseas, but this has given me the opportunity to test and investigate and gain a little more knowledge about how the stuff works. Here’s what I found, in a nutshell and without any guarantee of accuracy: basically, European cards all require you to enter a PIN (the classic 4-digit code) for any payment, even if it’s credit, just like an American debit card would (as opposed to just signing the receipt for a credit purchase). This seems to be true regardless of whether the card has a chip or not — that just determines whether the payment terminal has to place a call to the bank to verify the PIN or if it can be done locally on the card. Having spent four years in good ol’ France, I was very well aware of the practice, and didn’t think much about it — after all, my Canadian CC has a PIN, just like its French counterpart. Well, as always there’s more to it than meets the eye, and for some reason it seems this particular PIN can only be used at ATMs and not payment terminals.

While I have no idea why this restriction applies, nor if it even applies to all US/Canadian CCs — it sure does to mine — here’s the rule of thumb I’ve come up with: if a payment terminal requires a PIN, it won’t work. If it’s a ‘parking garage’ type that just reads the card number and does not require entering any PIN, then it’s fine — just like signing the receipt manually, obviously, if at all an option at the store you’re shopping at. Payments aside, the good news to travellers is, ATMs should never be a problem, so getting some cash is still easy all over the world. Just look for the particular network your card mentions — usually Visas work with ‘Plus’ ATMs and MasterCard with ‘Cirrus’, no idea about Amex or others though. Also, as usual when drawing cash from a CC be very aware of the cash advance rates that apply, most of the time it’s a much better idea to use your ATM/Debit card — mine does ‘Cirrus’ and has been working fine so far in Danish and Swedish ATMs.

So far I’ve had no luck asking for ‘no-PIN’ transactions in Denmark stores and restaurants, so it’s pretty much been all cash in Copenhagen, but I successfully convinced a cashier to let me sign the receipt instead of swiping the card in Stockholm. As an alternative, my French CC does the job anywhere and everywhere, but I’ve been reluctant to use it since I’ve long forgotten the applicable foreign exchange rates on that one — much to my surprise, none of the three countries I’ll be visiting are using Euros.

In our next episode, we’ll attempt to buy a bag of chips beyond the arctic circle — stay tuned for more exciting news of the modern life in Scandinavia!