Visa / Mastercard ?

vwman_3

Astaroth wrote:

Well, I just put that down to the dyslexia

Dyslexia rules K.O............

Tils

Well definatly if you go to Germany Visa wont work in a lot of places.... they take Mastercard a lot though.... dont know if its changed recently though.

Astaroth

I dont know if it has changed about which cards they accept but credit cards are relatively rare in Germany still so many places dont accept them at all (for many german website you pay on delivery of your goods)

johnofhertford

On a few occasions I have found my MasterCard not accepted for online transactions even though the site says it should be, whereas my VISA card is. It's possible it's down to the issuer though, not MasterCard.

student100

I recall from somewhere (can't cite the source though...) that in the UK Visa and MasterCard share networks so wherever one is accepted the other will be too. Anecdotally I have never seen anywhere in the UK, France, or the US or Canada that accepts one but not both.

The only cases I've heard of in most of the above countries are where there is a specific agreement for commercial reasons (e.g. I think some major US sporting tournament had some sponsorship from MasterCard and as a result only accepted MasterCard for payment, similarly Visa sponsor the Olympic games and as a result are the only card accepted for anything official to do with the Olympics URL="http://www.visaeurope.com/pressandmedia/factsheets/olympicgamessponsorship.jsp"]source[/URL).

Welliesorter

I seem to remember reading that they had different methods of converting between currencies: one converted to US dollars first and the other didn't. Not sure if this still applies.

In the UK, there's little or no difference in acceptability because banks (and their card processing operations) tend to be members of both.

exel1966

Never had any problems with VISA and I travel worldwide quite extensively. One thing I have noticed in M/C's favour though is that their credit limits tend to be higher.

King_Of_Fools

Welliesorter wrote:

I seem to remember reading that they had different methods of converting between currencies: one converted to US dollars first and the other didn't. Not sure if this still applies.

No, that is Amex that converts to USD first.

Welliesorter

exel1966 wrote:

One thing I have noticed in M/C's favour though is that their credit limits tend to be higher.

Surely that's a decision for the individual bank. I don't see how it would be determined by whichever scheme they're part of.