> If you do not accept Visa and Mastercard you are not going to accept payments from all sorts of travellers (tourists, business people
Who all stop in chain hotels, who will accept whatever you bring.
> Xenophobic or anti-tourism?
Anti-American tourism. I would say it is a mainstream opinion in Europe that American tourists are very annoying. Each country has its stereotypes about each other, usually stemming from WW2, but the feelings against American tourists have the wonderful effect of uniting Europe. Then America elected a president that threatened us first with economic sanctions, then war. Perhaps it is a fault in our characters, but we tend to take against people that threaten us with military action.
> Who all stop in chain hotels, who will accept whatever you bring.
No, that's pretty much all European hotels actually. Hotels require credit cards for three reasons:
1. Security - if you leave the room a mess or destroyed there's an avenue for recourse.
2. To make more money - having a card on file for "incidentals" increases purchases from hotel guests.
3. Obtain payment - most people don't have the cash laying around to pony up to pay full nightly rates, nor do they have any desire carry thousands of Euros around on their person just to go pay in a large purchase at this conjured up local cash-only inn. It also makes your hotel property an easy target for robbery.
It's strange to me that you're taking such a hard stance over something that is obviously incorrect in order to... make fun of people from around the world who can only afford to stay in chain hotels on vacation?
I usually stay boutique properties which are sometimes, but not always managed by boutique property groups. They take credit cards. Every. Single. Time.
Can you provide the name of a single hotel in Europe that doesn't take credit cards?
And separately, does that hotel accept credit cards?
By the way, American debit cards also run on Visa and Mastercard. So going back to the OP this idea of Europe "breaking up" with Visa and Mastercard is just not going to happen even if somehow whatever number of European businesses just stopped accepting credit cards.
Hotels in 10+ European countries? They accept any visa/mastercard and don't care if its debit or credit, its irrelevant. They will keep accepting them in addition to this new EU system.
I think you don't know what you're talking about in this conversation, but I'll kindly summarize it for you.
I said the following in context of using credit cards:
> Buying a bottle of Calvados in some remote area? Yea just tap to pay with your Mastercard.
Jimnotgym said:
> Hard disagree.
Implying that it is in fact not easy, or common, or something like that.
graemep then wrote:
> It's not just American tourists. It's everyone from everywhere. If you do not accept Visa and Mastercard you are not going to accept payments from all sorts of travellers (tourists, business people, people from your own country living abroad) either.
So at this point jimnotgym is saying, effectively, "tourists use credit cards". graemep is accurately pointing out that everyone uses credit cards, not just tourists.
Let's continue...
jimnotgym says:
> Who all stop in chain hotels, who will accept whatever you bring.
So here what's happening is jimnotgym is basically saying tourists use credit cards, they only stay in chain hotels.
Here is where I highlighted why credit cards are used (and sure, debit cards too) and then claiming that every hotel in Europe takes credit cards.
And then afterward you've said a few things which, of course one of them I acknowledged using the wrong words for. Since then you've just been arguing points that aren't relevant to the conversation at hand. You at one point claimed you used a debit card at a hotel.
Great.
Find me a single hotel in Europe that doesn't take credit cards Why? Because jimnotgym is asserting credit cards "are a tourist thing" and are used only at chain hotels or hotels for tourist. I'm giving him a softball question and setting an extreme anchor point here. The vast majority of hotels in Europe take credit cards regardless of whether they are catering to "tourists" or not. That's a demonstrable fact. But do all hotels? I bet they do. Which goes to prove that credit card usage at hotels isn't limited to "tourists".
If you have any specific questions you'd like to ask, I'd be happy to answer them. I don't know what point you're trying to make here and it really seems like you've lost track of what the initial conversation was and now you're just arguing things that aren't being argued.
Who all stop in chain hotels, who will accept whatever you bring.
> Xenophobic or anti-tourism?
Anti-American tourism. I would say it is a mainstream opinion in Europe that American tourists are very annoying. Each country has its stereotypes about each other, usually stemming from WW2, but the feelings against American tourists have the wonderful effect of uniting Europe. Then America elected a president that threatened us first with economic sanctions, then war. Perhaps it is a fault in our characters, but we tend to take against people that threaten us with military action.