Visa in Europe?

[leebo]

A question for the European posters out there:

Not too many years ago it was very common to find stores and restaurants in Europe that accepted Mastercard, but not nearly as many would accept Visa.

Anyone know the current situation today? I may be traveling to Germany in the next few weeks or months and was wondering if the situation had changed.

[Craig Tucker]

Well I can only speak for the UK, but just about everywhere here accepts Visa. I have a Visa card, I do not have a Mastercard

[henk schuifkaas]

Yeah, most stores/restaurants in the Netherlands also accept VISA. I think it's becoming more popular in Europe the last few years.
www.visa.de has some statistics. (http://www.visa.de/ueber_uns/statistiken.htm)

[pbhalerao]

I had no problems with VISA either.

[SupaCoopa]

In Greece Visa and Mastercard (and Switch if I'm not very mistaken) are treated equally.
One who accepts Mastercard, accepts Visa as well.

[i_am_dave]

On my trips to Europe, I have only run into a few cases where my Visa was not accepted, mostly, it seems, in the smaller family run businesses. A couple of times, I was hosting business dinners in nice family run resturants in Karlsruhe that wouldn't take my Visa. Luckily, I was carrying enough cash to cover the bill.

Prime Directive: Always carry enough cash to pay for your dinner and to get back to your hotel room!!

[leebo]

Thanks everybody.

[Richard_G]

I live in the UK, regularly travel to France and occasionally to Germany. Just about everywhere in the UK accepts both Visa and Mastercard. In France Visa is called Carte Bleu and has CB across the blue, white yellow logo, otherwise it is exactly the same and accepted in most places. The one to avoid is American Express. I had an AE card and tried to use it in France about 5 years ago and only managed to find one petrol filling station and one restuarant that took it. That was in the space of 2 weeks and nearly 2000 miles of driving!