Payment cards in the Netherlands

Icandothat

Can anyone advise me what is the most accepted card to use in the Netherlands. I find in very many places that my usual credit and debit cards are not accepted, even in the main supermarket and most stations. I am happy to prepay rather than have to carry wedges of EUR. Someone suggested it needed to be a Cirrus card. I don't know if this is correct.
Thanks for any help.

Tixy

Cirrus usually relates to withdrawing funds from an ATM. It is a mastercard brand.

I think I have read that banks in the Netherlands use Maestro debit cards rather than Visa (these are mastercard version of debit cards).
That said I would have imagined visa branded cards would be accepted (lonelyplanet suggests both visa and mastercard are widely accepted).

What cards do you have currently have that you've had problems with acceptance? Is the issue with using them to buy goods or to withdraw funds from an atm?

Icandothat

Thanks Tixy. I have Visa debit cards and both mastercard and visa credit cards. They will either all work or none will. For example I have found a machine in the Metro station in Rotterdam where I can use my CC to top up my train card, at last, somewhere outside Schiphol. But the supermarket, Albert Heijn, is cash only for me.
Oh, and I have no trouble at the ATM.

zerog

Are you trying to use a UK card?

Many POSs in NL will only accept a debit card issued by an NL bank

ATMs should accept any visa/mastercard

Icandothat

They are all UK cards.
I wondered if any of the pre pay cards may work.

Biggles

ATMs and hotels etc all take visa & MC. But smaller retail outlets seem only to be geared up to take Dutch debit cards.

System

They will tend to take Maestro or Vpay if they only take debit cards. I'm not aware of UK issuers of Vpay.

If they accept credit cards, then they will usually accept Visa Debit and Debit MasterCard.

Cirrus is the ATM brand of MasterCard.

reclusive46

yes a lot of places in the Netherlands and Germany only take Maestro and most of them take VPAY (But as someone said above, you can't get a VPAY card in the UK). If the establishment takes credit cards it will accept Visa Debit and Debit MasterCard as well, apart from a small amount of stores in the Netherlands that will only take Local debit cards and American Express (Usually electronic stores or expensive restaurants).