Benita Posted August 7, 2012 #1 Share Posted August 7, 2012 There was a thread awhile back about where to get these. People were having trouble using our "swipe" cards in Europe. I managed to get two - one is the Bank of America Accolades American Express Card - free if you are a Merrill Lynch customer and another free Visa card from Andrews Credit Union- it is easy and free to join. The Bank of America is a chip and signature card and the Andrews is a chip and pin card. The only negative is that both have a 1% foreign transaction fee, whereas a Capital One "swipe" card among others does not have the fee, but it can save a huge amount of time if you want to buy train tickets, etc. from machines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacheco18 Posted August 7, 2012 #2 Share Posted August 7, 2012 British Airways Visa does not have a foreign transaction fee and has a chip. And we got 100k miles each just for getting the card a while back. We have 2 free Bus Class tix to Dubai to boot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orchestrapal Posted August 7, 2012 #3 Share Posted August 7, 2012 There was a thread awhile back about where to get these. People were having trouble using our "swipe" cards in Europe. I managed to get two - one is the Bank of America Accolades American Express Card - free if you are a Merrill Lynch customer and another free Visa card from Andrews Credit Union- it is easy and free to join. The Bank of America is a chip and signature card and the Andrews is a chip and pin card. The only negative is that both have a 1% foreign transaction fee, whereas a Capital One "swipe" card among others does not have the fee, but it can save a huge amount of time if you want to buy train tickets, etc. from machines. The Accolades card is currently not being issued by Merrill Lynch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare jpalbny Posted August 7, 2012 #4 Share Posted August 7, 2012 There was a thread awhile back about where to get these. People were having trouble using our "swipe" cards in Europe. I managed to get two - one is the Bank of America Accolades American Express Card - free if you are a Merrill Lynch customer and another free Visa card from Andrews Credit Union- it is easy and free to join. The Bank of America is a chip and signature card and the Andrews is a chip and pin card. The only negative is that both have a 1% foreign transaction fee, whereas a Capital One "swipe" card among others does not have the fee, but it can save a huge amount of time if you want to buy train tickets, etc. from machines. Odd - we've had the BOA Amex Accolades since ~2008 and we've not heard any talk of it upgrading to Chip/PIN. Also, never had a 1% transaction fee. The issuer changed from BOA to ML last year, but the basic terms and conditions didn't change, AFAIK. Will have to get in touch with them - with the amount of traveling we do, upgrading to Chip and PIN would be great - thanks for that information! We have a Chip and Signature Visa card from JP Morgan Chase. Got it a little over a year ago. Works like a charm in European train ticket machines, unattended gas stations, etc. Even though they say it's chip and signature, I do have a PIN, and I've used it as a chip and PIN card before (in Norway, where they looked at me funny when I said it was chip and signature, and said, "Enter your PIN!"). No foreign transaction fees with this card either. The only downside is that it costs $95 per year (first year was waived when we signed up). The lack of transaction fees, and the ability to actually USE it in machines makes it worth the cost for me. We used the heck out of it all over France, Greece, and Italy this past June (the AMEX is nice, but not universally accepted). The staffed ticket lines at the RER station in CDG were horrible, but only 1-2 deep at the machines. Took only a minute or two to get tickets! Even at some little out of the way cafe in Corfu, they took my Chip Visa. BTW, they were pretty amazed to see an American with a chip card... :) Also, once registered with Verified by Visa, you can use your card to make online foreign purchases. For example, Perurail doesn't take AMEX, but I was able to buy my train tix for Machu Picchu with the JP Morgan Chase card last year, with no transaction fee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benita Posted August 7, 2012 Author #5 Share Posted August 7, 2012 The Accolades card is currently not being issued by Merrill Lynch. That is correct. It is issued by Bank of America. Because they own Merrill Lynch, fees are waived if you maintain a certain amount in a Merrill Lynch brokerage account. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roothy123 Posted August 9, 2012 #6 Share Posted August 9, 2012 Thanks for this thread. There has been a lot of discussion and anguish about this topic in the "Europe - Northern" section. We're hoping to do OK with our chipless cards, but I am a bit worried, as we will be in 7 different countries, and only 3 use the Euro. I do a lot of independent traveling, and ticket machines are great, but not if you don't have the local currency! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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