Travel Plans 2026

Just got back from trip to Germany/Austria. Credit cards were accepted at vast majority of places (much better than Rome a few years ago). But wasn't universal. Couple restaurants only accepted cash. Cab to the Vienna airport was supposed to take credit card but transaction never went through (multiple attempts). Ended up getting cash at an ATM in the airport while taxi waited outside. Had someone traveling with us had a similar issue in Munich with a taxi. Phone payments didn't work at a couple other locations (had to use physical card which is fine though less convenient). Going back in the fall and plan to have at least 100 Euros with us at all times. Needing coins (0.50 euro was the most common and not the easiest to find) was something my wife and I never needed (but others in our group did). Plus side is presumably cleaner public toilets (though I never saw the inside of one).

Was a tough stretch to be without/with limited a/c and without ice. Lack of window screens is puzzling to me. Fun trip though.

The CC thing seems to vary by country quite a bit. Never had an issue in London or Copenhagen, or in stops in Iceland and Norway. None of those countries use Euros either, which would have made it an even bigger pain in the ass. France uses the Euro, but the port we were in (Cherbourg, where the Titanic museum is) was extra touristy, so no issue there.

Disney is already cashless at a lot of locations, and I hope they do it everywhere soon. Cash slows everything down.

Here in the UK 99% of businesses will take card - a lot won't accept Amex because of high processing fees and lengthy settlement times but anything with the Visa or Mastercard logo on is fine. The only places that won't take card are some fast food joints (especially chinese and kebab/turkish grill type places), and market traders - although a lot of market traders do take them now. With the advent of a million versions similar to Paypal's iZettle device (cheap to buy the card device outright, links to your phone for the data and charge details etc, small transaction fee normally around 1.5-2%) there's no real reason to NOT accept card.... except to under-declare income and therefore tax liability of course, but I'm sure nobody does that, do they 😉

The flip side of this: Increasingly in the US vendors are adding a surcharge for credit card purchases. Most of the mom-and-pop places near me have been doing that for a while now. I don't blame them.

At one point, it was against the law to add surcharges for credit card purchases. Federal law expired but credit card companies blocked member merchants from imposing surcharges (credit card companies had vested interest in credit being treated the same as cash). Anti-trust case brought 15 years or so ago was settled allowing surcharges (as long as they were capped and clearly disclosed).

Now, with increased prices, many merchants are looking to preserve profit margins any way they can. Couple percentage points in terms of passing credit card fees to customers helps.

I vaguely recall that during the "surcharges are illegal" period that it was possible to offer a cash discount. I could be wrong about that...

I pay 2.9% + 30 cents through Stripe, which is a deal compared to the old merchant accounts. They do 2.7% + 5 cents for in-person stuff. Square is 3.3%/30 cents online, or 2.6%/15 cents in-person. I don't think these are completely unreasonable, and you should just factor it in as the cost of doing business. Add-on fees are cringe.

I don't remember if we talked about tipping, but a coffee shop near my wife's new job is run by European immigrants. They insist on no tipping. It's not even an option on their POS terminals.

The surcharges rarely change my actions, I’m certainly not going to use my debit card, that carries far too much risk in a fraud situation especially online. The only time I use that is at a grocery store chain that doesn’t accept credit cards. Often, those surcharges, I can mitigate with the rewards I earn on the cards anyways, especially if it’s a bonus category (which in my cards is hotels, airline tickets, restaurants, gas, online shopping, pharmacy.) I don’t usually carry enough cash on me to do otherwise.