This crap again

[2and3and4]

Eating dinner in an upscale hotel group's M star restaurant......go to pay the bill with the same card Ive used all week in between paying bills in cash and.... machine won't accept the card for payment.

Lots of shrugging and blank face staring but no reason why machine won't take card.

So wife pays with cash.

Maitre d' says frequent problems with cards from UK banks.

Anyone know what the problem is?

I'm really sick of having to take 1000's of euros in cash on holiday because of the certainty that this bullst with cards will happen. Serious pain in the jacksie when it happens at hotel checkout time with a taxi waiting to go to the airport. Now hotel bills are being paid sometimes months in advance, to save that checkout time embarrassment, and of course never any swift CS assistance available to sort it.

WTF is the problem?

Edited by 2and3and4 on Tuesday 20th January 22:33

[Countdown]

It’s never happened to me (touch wood) but surely it’s easily fixable by having 2 or more cards?

[Sheepshanks]

American Express.

[JoshSm]

Cards work for most people so is it your crappy bank, the account you have, or just the venues you go to finding an excuse to get a nice untraceable wedge?

[AndyAudi]

Stick the card on your phone, I’ve found Apple Pay works

[Hill92]

Do you inform your bank when going abroad? Might be an anti-fraud measure kicking in if not.

[greygoose]

Why are you bothered about finding cash if your wife has planned ahead?

[2and3and4]

Well battled thru the 24/7 chatline including exhausting the Artificial Stupidity bot which puts you thru to the bloke in India who takes half an hour to come to the table, and.....

.....nothing to do with the bank, the card or me. Blames the merchant......

.......who earlier told me they get lots of problems with UK banks' cards.

So onto the New Normal circular blame roundabout we do go. Tomorrow. Too late now, and, actually, can't be bothered tomorrow either. No one will take responsibility for it, so we'll just have another cash based hol a la1990s and take a bundle of cash again on the next one ad infinitum.

[Armitage.Shanks]

Never had a problem as long as I tell the bank though the App what country I'll be in and the relevant dates.

I've also got a FairFX card as back up that I can preload with Euros and several other currencies. It 'was' going to be useful for pay at the pump when abroad except instant payments that are unable to be authenticated are not approved. I can pay the attendant in the shop but not at the pump

[ooid]

Get a monzo card, and app. Literally, have been using now nearly for 8 years for all overseas spendings, not a trouble at all. (mastercard exchange rate is also fairly much better than UK banks)

[jock mcsporran]

It’s been a long time since I’ve had problems using my cards abroad. I used to have one bank being a bit overzealous with their fraud protection in some of the places I worked but that was a while back.

[Tighnamara]

2and3and4 said:

Well battled thru the 24/7 chatline including exhausting the Artificial Stupidity bot which puts you thru to the bloke in India who takes half an hour to come to the table, and.....

.....nothing to do with the bank, the card or me. Blames the merchant......

.......who earlier told me they get lots of problems with UK banks' cards.

So onto the New Normal circular blame roundabout we do go. Tomorrow. Too late now, and, actually, can't be bothered tomorrow either. No one will take responsibility for it, so we'll just have another cash based hol a la1990s and take a bundle of cash again on the next one ad infinitum.

If it is the card / bank why not talk to your bank when home, no progress then change to another that you known would work for your next holiday.
Credit card or debit card ?

Sounds as though you are thriving on the problem rather than trying to resolve.

[FlyingPanda]

Which bank is it?

[WH16]

I used to get this with Lloyds regularly (10+ years ago). They would often block the card for 'security' reasons. Their solution - tell them which countries I would visit and when. My response was that I could be in five different countries in a week and this was impractical. They eventually seemed to get the message but it was very frustrating.

Apple Pay (probably Google too but I have never used it) has far fewer issues than a physical card (due I guess to the increased security/anonymity of the transaction), and using a multi-currency account like Revolut or Wise makes things even more reliable IME.

[mikef]

Wise card - it shows up as a Euro payment card, which may be the problem you're having. Load your currency into that before hols

[Techno9000]

Tighnamara said:

If it is the card / bank why not talk to your bank when home, no progress then change to another that you known would work for your next holiday.
...
...

This ^

Had a well known credit card for many years, then they started to decline my transactions (within the UK) every now and again, for 'security' they would say. The final straw being when this prevented me from having a certain delivery in time.
Switched to another major provider, who have been faultless in this regard, possibly due to their use of an app to approve remote purchases.

Just move on.

[rdjohn]

They simply want the cash, nothing to do with equipment.

We bought a couple of paintings in the UK last year, deposit on my card was not a problem. Full amount and suddenly their machine had stopped working, so could I bring cash.

[LRDefender]

There's a plethora of banks that offer hassle & charge free cards for overseas purchases. I have a Chase account and use it everywhere and it's never let me down. Revolut is another great product.

How was the food?

[RizzoTheRat]

Credit or debit card? Some countries have their quirks with cards, for example in the Netherlands debit cards are usually fine, but some places don't take credit cards. Also most bank cards are Maestro so occasionally you'll find a place that doesn't take Visa or Mastercard but that's rare these days.