macrakis@harvard.ARPA (Stavros Macrakis) (04/30/85)
The choice of credit cards is not a trivial matter.
There are three basic kinds of credit cards: travel and entertainment
(T&E) {American Express, Diner's Club, Carte Blanche}; bank cards
{MasterCard, Visa}; and special-purpose cards {Sears, Shell, department
store}. For travel, the first two are relevant.
T&E cards are run by more-or-less independent organizations with their
own offices, branches, and so on. American Express has an extensive
network of offices which can give you cash off your card, replace lost
cards (and travellers' cheques), and hold your mail (a very useful
service if you don't have a strict itinerary, by the way; service
provided to all Amex customers (even those carrying one $10 travellers'
cheque); otherwise a service fee to check mail, even if you don't have
any). In addition to its offices in large cities, it has agents in
smaller towns and cities which offer most of the same services but with
shorter hours, .... Diner's has agents but not offices--essentially no
services. I know nothing of Carte Blanche. T&E cards normally must be
paid up in full each month.
Bank cards are issued by alliances of independent banks. Any of the
member banks should be able to provide you with cash advances (less
reliable than Amex) but no other services. Bank cards normally are
revolving credit (interest rates vary: shop). In each country, a
different bank or banks is affiliated with MC or Visa, and the name of
the card varies. In many countries, the largest bank handles MC or Visa
but not both. This means not that the other card is useless, just
rarer. In France, MC -is- almost useless.
MC/Eurocard/Access countries: UK, Germany, Italy
Visa/Carte Bleue countries: France, Turkey
(not complete lists -- anyone want to add to them?)
The usefulness of a card varies by usage as well. Almost all luxury
hotels, restaurants, and shops accept one of AE and/or DC. (A
vanishingly small number accept only DC.) -- But in Paris, five of the
six Michelin three-star restaurants took NO credit cards in
'81 (rich Frenchmen pay by personal check; checks are more solid in
France than here). As a rule, ordinary hotels, restaurants, and shops
in Europe are less likely than here to accept credit cards at all; if
they do, it will be MC or Visa; essentially no ordinary restaurants
accept cards in Greece or Turkey. In areas where tourism is important
to the economy, most tourist services will accept cards, usually AE, MC,
and Visa; even in places where the restaurants don't accept cards, the
souvenir/crafts shops often will.
As a general matter, in the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, and Austria,
cards are almost as widely used as here. In Benelux and France, less,
but still fairly widely. In Italy, much less. In Greece, mostly for
higher-priced tourist facilities and shops. In Turkey, luxury tourist
facilities and tourist-oriented shops only.
In Eastern Europe, cards are accepted only at tourist facilities (good
hotels, fancy restaurants, foreign-currency shops). But of course you
get the official, not the black-market, rate. You may have to save the
slips to prove you spent the minimum per day. On the Yugoslav coast,
the situation is more like Greece than it is like Eastern Europe.
Ferries, buses, and trains often will NOT accept credit cards. In
Western Europe, gas stations usually take cards, in Greece and Turkey,
seldom. Airlines ALWAYS will.
My advice is to have Amex for service (cash advances etc.), luxuries and
general-purpose tourism, and both Visa and MC for more modest hotels,
restaurants, and shopping. Although I've received excellent service
from Diner's, it's very rare to find an establishment that takes Diner's
that doesn't take one of the others.
-s
Appendix: Some ramblings
MC vs. Visa in Paris
I arrived in Paris a few years ago with no money on me (I hadn't gotten
around to buying travellers' cheques before the banks closed). I first
went to a Carte Bleue (Visa) member bank (they're everywhere), and tried
to get a cash advance. No luck. Their computer didn't list me as paid
up (which I had been for some weeks). Twenty minutes wasted. Anyway,
the maximum was about $350. I then went to the Amex office. The clerk
told me there was no problem -- I could get $1000 off my reserve credit
(Gold Card) and $1000 out of my checking account with a check. Fine,
but I didn't have any checks. No problem, do you know the account
number? Fine, here's a blank check. After showing my card and my
passport, and with minor paper shuffling, I walked out twenty minutes
later with $2000. (For you monolinguals: bank clerks often don't speak
English; Amexco clerks always do.)
Rug buying in Turkey
The first time I was in Turkey, I decided I wanted to buy more kilims
(flat-woven rugs) than I had the money for. So I went to the bank to
get a cash advance. This was not a common transaction for the bank
clerks. They looked through a large book of sample cards they could
accept (remember, each bank can design its own), and didn't find mine.
At the time, I had MC but not Visa. There was no Amex office within 200
miles.
The next time I was in Turkey, I made sure to have a Visa. It turned
out that I didn't need cash advances, because all the rug merchants in
Istanbul, Konya, and Marmaris now accepted credit cards. Some only
accepted one or the other, but in that case, they would just go over to
another one of the rug merchants, run off the slip on his machine, and
get an IOU. They didn't complain about the bank's commission, but they
did complain that it took forever to get their account credited -- but
this was true of travellers' cheques as well. Credit cards were a very
practical way of paying for rugs (but not much else) in those cities
that had tourist traffic. I haven't been back to the smaller towns in
the East with rug merchants, so I don't know if they now take cards.
My ignorance
I have not travelled outside Europe (besides Turkey) nor to Scandinavia,
Iberia, Ireland, or the USSR. I don't know the situations there. Any
information (or corrections) appreciated, especially on Canada, Latin
America, and Iberia.karsh@geowhiz.UUCP (Bruce Karsh) (04/30/85)
> > Ferries, buses, and trains often will NOT accept credit cards. In > Western Europe, gas stations usually take cards, in Greece and Turkey, > seldom. Airlines ALWAYS will. > The national airline of Belize, Central America (I can't remember its name) does not take credit cards. No surprise since credit cards are not accepted at anyplace but banks or VERY fancy hotels there. -- Bruce Karsh | U. Wisc. Dept. Geology and Geophysics | 1215 W Dayton, Madison, WI 53706 | This space for rent. (608) 262-1697 | {ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!geowhiz!karsh |
broehl@wateng.UUCP (Bernie Roehl) (05/02/85)
Newsgroups: net.travel
Subject: Re: Credit card choice
References: <1822@topaz.ARPA> <90@harvard.ARPA>
Reply-To: broehl@wateng.UUCP (Bernie Roehl)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
So far as I know, both MC and Visa are accepted pretty well everywhere in
Canada (certainly in Ontario). You occasionally find a restaurant that accepts
only one but not the other, but this is rare. Amex is accepted at almost as
many places (certainly all the ritzy ones).
--
-Bernie Roehl (University of Waterloo)
...decvax!watmath!wateng!broehl