cash or cards

Heading to France in 4 weeks was the best wayto pay for things?,petrol etc credit cardsok ? or bring Euros.

Cards are fine.

EXCEPT in many filling stations outside shop opening hours where the card operated attendentless pumps will only accept French debit cards DESPITE displaying VISA etc logos. Very very annoying. Ive been caught every time Belgium has some like this too.

But in this circumstance you are screwed as you couldnt pay cash anyway. So the moral is fill up in the day and on saturday as filling stations often work like this in smaller places.

Obviously in cities you will be fine.

I hardly ever take cash anywhere these days and just use local ATMs. The only drawback is that somethime although your card will work in the machine it wont open the bloody lobby door. In which case you just wait until someone exits or enters

Oh. and once non of my cards worked in a manned machine either in Belgium. So I reckon the moral is also always have 20 euro for a fill, and fill in the day and saturday.

For everything else cards is fine, but you may like to check the charges before you leave. Some charge a fee per foreign currency transaction.

Wot he said.....

Outside of main towns & Cities you'll be hard pushed to find Petrol on a Sunday in France except at the super markets, make sure they have a manned kiosk !

I always pay hotels etc on plastic, it's much easier than carrying 2 types of cash... BUT, just remember that Switzerland don't officially take Euro's either (although many places do).

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If your mileometer is saying you have another 30 odd miles before a refill is needed and you are approaching a petrol station fill up because sod's law works well in France. Every petrol station will either be closed, on the other side of a dual carriageway or unattended and French credit cards only. I had a few narrow escapes and only once had to ask somebody to put some fuel in my tank for cash.
Saturday night ensure you have a full tank for reasons aready stated above.

yeah, we were driving for ages to find a 24hr place in the alps, bumped into a french guy on a bike who was on vapour, but declined our offer to follow him.

Luckily the place we did find accepted Mastercard. Lots don't. We learnt our lesson.

The only attended Petrol stations you'll find in France on a Sunday is on the main motorway routes.

I found that the cash machines were weird in Belgium. They said Visa or Maestro, but refused to accept my cards. Spent ages finding a machine that would take them.
The same cards worked in all ATMs in Canada, New Zealand and every other country I've visited.

[TSM]

I would say cash for petrol otherwise you will always be stung on the exchang rates. If you do use a cash machine, try not to take small ammounts out too much as you normaly get charged a transaction fee for the service. I was lucky last year to have a bank account in portugal so i was never stung for using my card abroad as it was already Euros for my account.

Originally Posted by TSM

I would say cash for petrol otherwise you will always be stung on the exchang rates. If you do use a cash machine, try not to take small ammounts out too much as you normaly get charged a transaction fee for the service.

TSM You may have missed the point. Most garages off the autoroutes are self service operated by credit cards but don't accept UK credit cards. No cash.
I was lucky in Arcachon as I forgot what day it was, got up at 6am to make an early start and realised I was on reserve and it was Sunday. So spun the time out having a shower and breakfast until 9am when the office opened (english speaking staff) only to find there was an attended garage within half a mile. Sod's law says that if I had decamped and loaded the bike up I would have run out of petrol looking for some in the wrong direction.

[TSM]

Originally Posted by drumwrecker

TSM You may have missed the point. Most garages off the autoroutes are self service operated by credit cards but don't accept UK credit cards. No cash.
I was lucky in Arcachon as I forgot what day it was, got up at 6am to make an early start and realised I was on reserve and it was Sunday. So spun the time out having a shower and breakfast until 9am when the office opened (english speaking staff) only to find there was an attended garage within half a mile. Sod's law says that if I had decamped and loaded the bike up I would have run out of petrol looking for some in the wrong direction.

Not missed the point as i did the UK to Portugal trip last year and also found the same thing so i just headed to the motorway as i was running very low on petrol one day.