| ▲ | xenocratus 9 hours ago |
| We took that train, realised when we got to the other end of the line that we hadn't gotten where we expected, then turned back to the place where it separates. Waited for the next advertised train to airport (it's signalled on the electronic board as two separate entries; yes, it says "board whatever carriages for airport, and the rest for ...", or at least I assume it did, as it was in German of course; but again, it literally shows up as two different trains). Train arrives, stays there for a while (it's a big train, so the part in front of us didn't move so we didn't realise it had already separated), then after like 5-6 minutes it leaves. Only as it starts moving I notice that a small electronic board on the side of the carriage said "airport". The notice board then changes and obviously "both" trains disappear. We were so lucky that we'd decided to go to the airport much earlier than we needed. And don't get me started on the ticketing machines not accepting Visa, Mastercard, or Amex at the central station in Munchen. Or the web ticketing interface which was at least as annoying as the train to use. |
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| ▲ | jltsiren 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I've never had trouble buying train tickets with a credit card in Germany. If I had to guess, your issue was that you were trying to use a card that didn't support chip-and-PIN or contactless payments. |
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| ▲ | eisa01 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Two years back the S-bahn ticket machines at the aiport only supported chip+pin, not contactless. Had to open my banking app to figure out my pin code, as I wanted to use my corporate Amex | |
| ▲ | zahlman 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > didn't support chip-and-PIN or contactless payments. As opposed to... swiping the card? Are there really cards out there that exclusively support that? | | |
| ▲ | ninalanyon 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Very few Norwegian issued cards, if any, have a magnetic strip. It's too easily cloned. | | |
| ▲ | LadyCailin 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Both my DNB and Nordea cards, as well as my personal and corporate Norwegian AMEX cards all have magnetic strip, and they’ve all been issued somewhat recently. |
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| ▲ | jltsiren 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Chip and signature, which often means just the chip without further authentication. EMV has multiple options. Many countries (including the US) chose the signature option for credit cards for convenience and use PINs only with debit cards. Before contactless payment apps became common, that was a major source of friction when using American credit cards in Europe. | | |
| ▲ | Aloha 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'd argue we picked it for legacy reasons - Americans are not used to the chip/pin concept, and adopted EMV very late because of a variety of legacy reasons (massive installed base of mag stripe equipment, and systems to deal with the inherent slightly higher fraud). |
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| ▲ | SoftTalker 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If this story was more than a few years ago it's plausible that the card didn't have a chip. I still have a VISA debit card without a chip, and it was issued only two years ago. Also chip-and-pin is mostly not enabled with American credit cards or card payment terminals | | | |
| ▲ | rvba 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Prepaid gift cards (please note: those are not store issued) dont have chips and it is sometimes a problem to use them. But I doubt someone would buy a plane ticket with them. | | |
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| ▲ | cfstras 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| A couple years ago, I was at a station waiting for a (delayed) ICE train.
I couldn't buy a ticket at the machine or with the app, since the train had already departed (if it had been on schedule).
The ticket machine also wouldn't take VISA / MasterCard, only the more common Girocard (most people still call it EC) Later, in the train, when I asked the conductor to buy a ticket with my Girocard, he said "That's not a commonly used payment method" and asked for VISA, or cash (not having any to provide change, obviously). |
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| ▲ | Freak_NL 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| American Express I get. No one uses that in Europe. Visa and Mastercard debit cards are what everyone uses and they work in all German ticket machines. You weren't trying to use a credit card where you? What language do you expect the Germans to use? |
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| ▲ | huhkerrf 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't think the person expected the Germans to use a different language, only was saying that they weren't entirely sure what it said. | |
| ▲ | eldaisfish 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | For a train going to an airport, English. This is the norm around the world, especially with complicated situations like a train splitting in two. | |
| ▲ | ragall 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Lots of people use Amex in Europe. It's very popular as a business card. | | |
| ▲ | ninalanyon 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I doubt that it is popular with the actual users, only with the company that they work for. When I had a company issued AMEX card the damn thing was practically useless. In fact even in the US there were plenty of places that wouldn't accept it. |
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| ▲ | em-bee 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| germans don't use credit cards. finding an automated ticket machine thst handles credit cards would be extremely rare. |
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| ▲ | thesimon 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | DB machines have been accepting all sorts of cards for a long time (Visa, AMEX, Discover). Local vending machines might vary though. | |
| ▲ | ivan_gammel 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Starting in 2026, support of digital payments is mandatory in Germany for all types of businesses. DB has been card-friendly for a long time. |
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