[Closed] Contactless credit cards abroad

Our first transaction abroad this week required a PIN after attempting contactless. We then used the card again in the same shop (splitting purchases for us and our son) and contactless worked and has worked each subsequent time.
I will use the PIN for the next transaction though, regardless of value.

The contactless value is different too - it's 100+ in Switzerland so they look at you with disgust when you can't pay for the 95CHF pizza and coke. We now have £45 so anything up to that value will probably be okay

In my experience:-

Europe: no problem at all with cards or Google Pay. The limit is surprisingly high in some areas when using a phone to pay, so if a waiter/waitress puts their card machine next to your phone while the screen is on you may accidentally end up paying for the meal.

USA/Canada: HSBC, Nationwide (debit and credit) cards don't work for contactless. Nor do they support Google Pay. However, Revolut will make contactless payments and Curve seems to work everywhere. I've once had Curve contactless rejected but it was a hotel and customer support told me that the hotel had their terminal configured incorrectly.

Mexico: Curve, Revolut, and HSBC are fine. Nationwide is no go without the PIN.

Chile: No problems with any card.

Japan: No luck with anything.

If you happen to be abroad there doesn’t seem to be a mechanism for this to be communicated to the merchant’s card machine and your card is blocked from both contactless and PIN transactions.

Thanks for that, I didn't know there was a limit. I wonder whether that's just something that happens abroad, or whether, when it reaches the limit and needs a PIN, making too many attempts contactless will trigger a block, simply on the number of failed attempts.

I went to a European country beginning with Sw and whilst they had been issued with contactless capable machines, they hadn't actually started using it yet so most merchants outside of the airport didn't know what it was. I bought something small and attempted to pay by card by waving it at the machine. The merchant thought I was an idiot and slowly explained how to use the chip and pin machine, I felt a right tool.

Spain has put up the pinless/contactless limits due to covid. Not sure exactly what it is now but previously it was €20 and now it's >€50. If it fails you can always try sticking the card in the reader where you always have to enter the PIN.

whether, when it reaches the limit and needs a PIN, making too many attempts contactless will trigger a block, simply on the number of failed attempts.

In my case the first contactless transaction was declined. The merchant retried with PIN but that was also declined, and then after 20 minutes on hold the bank customer services gave the above story. It may be that there's something that goes block the second attempt at same transaction and then block all transactions because consecutive declined count >= 2. That would be a rather stupid algorithm, but wouldn't be the stupidest thing a bank has ever done.

It's simple really.

If it's a low amount use contactless. If not use PIN. Do NOT let them decide which version to use as they'll assume the local contactless limit. I learnt this the hard way with clients in Zürich. Mildly embarassing.

If it fails you can always try sticking the card in the reader where you always have to enter the PIN.

Yup. But as ajaj points out it won't work if you have already made too many contactless payments. Your card will be blocked with no warning and you will be hunting for a bank cashpoint in the middle of nowhere.

When you are in the UK and you make too many contactless transactions in a row the card machine says no and demands a pin. This doesn't seem to reliably happen when abroad.

Ah, fair enough. Just make a habit of sticking it into the reader then.

France, in particular, has acquired lots of "sans contact" preferred signs in the past week (since they upped their Covid precautions).

The point of this thread was to warn people to intersperse a few PIN transactions, regardless of the retailer requests, to avoid getting their card blocked.

The point of this thread was to warn people to intersperse a few PIN transactions, regardless of the retailer requests, to avoid getting their card blocked.

And as a result of your post that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

I think I’ve spent actual money in France twice this week. Make sure you have a contactless card that doesn’t incur a fee for every transaction. A lot of places are contactless. You can still use cash but not everywhere; contactless is being pushed heavily. The limit in France is 50 euro now.

Curve, Transferwise & Monzo all on Apple Pay FTW

When you use a contactless card every few transactions have to be authenticated by PIN

I've always understood this to be the case, but I can only remember one occasion in the last couple of years I've had to authenticate by PIN. Just about all our spends go on a John Lewis Mastercard, pay it off each month and we get a pile of JL/Waitrose vouchers through the letterbox each quarter. Do you have to do the PIN thing more frequently using a debit card?

it all depends on the risk modelling your bank uses. Some may choose to allow unlimited contactless as long as they're dispersed in time (no more than 3 a day or whatever), some may have a total limit between pin uses, etc.

Contactless on apple/google/samsung pay works differently

I’ve always understood this to be the case, but I can only remember one occasion in the last couple of years I’ve had to authenticate by PIN. Just about all our spends go on a John Lewis Mastercard, pay it off each month and we get a pile of JL/Waitrose vouchers through the letterbox each quarter.

This is me. I've used contactless or Google Pay almost exclusively ever since it was enabled for the John Lewis card. I've never once had to enter a PIN.