Amount of euros

[thejoker]

1000. Cash is king on the Camino.

Agree. I carried about that too. No problems. Never short as a card did the trick as well.

 

[thejoker]

As to cheques, they are still widely used in France. In supermarkets some people pay by cheque relatively small purchases. I pay my GP by cheque and send a cheque to the company doing my garden.
And it still happens to me occasionally in the UK in a shop or restaurant that the machine does not recognise my French bank card and wants my signature.

+Japan
+HK
+Taiwan
+Seoul

 

[klimmo]

Well, if I could pay my bills with cash, cash could be useful. But 90% of all bills (and all payroll) goes through the bank. So if everyone starts to pay me in cash, I have to deposit all that and pay hefty fees on it, it just suddenly isn’t that attractive anymore. Sure a small amount of cash on hand is fine, but money in the bank through a low fee European debit card payment is the cheapest way.

Cheques are sometimes still used in France but are more and more refused as they are expensive to cash (and unreliable to cash too). We’ve stopped accepting them years ago.

And these vital messages

 

[Kathor1]

I had initially only commented in this thread because a poster had referred to a comment I had made in an earlier thread.

As this question of paying by (credit) card versus paying by cash - when there is a choice between the two - is apparently sometimes viewed as a kind of moral / ethical dilemma and decision, I got a bit more curious.

We are talking about "interchange fees" here. Apparently, there is in fact a big difference between the USA and the EU/UK. Here is a quote from Wikipedia but you can find the same range of figures in other sources:

In the United States, the fee averages approximately 2% of transaction value. In the EU, interchange fees are capped to 0.3% of the transaction for credit cards and to 0.2% for debit cards, while there is no cap for corporate cards.​

​

You can google for example Mastercard interchange if you wish to inform yourself better and in more detail about all this and about your chosen forms of payment in Spain. For example:

Mastercard Interchange Fee Across Europe | Explore by Location

Mastercard EU interchange fees help maximize the value of electronic payments between acquirers & issuers. Explore the interchange fees by location across Europe.

www.mastercard.com

Ouf, I am relieved. As a holder of credit cards and debit cards issued by EU banks I will not hesitate to use these cards on Camino whenever I can and if and when I am in Spain again. My conscience is clear.

​

 

[Former member 104756]

As this question of paying by (credit) card versus paying by cash - when there is a choice between the two - is apparently sometimes viewed as a kind of moral / ethical dilemma and decision,

For me, I don’t see it as a moral or ethical dilemma, but for small business owners on the camino and elsewhere, I like to offer a choice when I can - it’s up to them to choose what they prefer

 

[Peterexpatkiwi]

+Japan
+HK
+Taiwan
+Seoul

If you like you can also hear China to the list, according to Google. I did say that I couldn't think of any others, but naturally that didn't mean that there weren't.
However on the flip side as far as countries that don't use them are concerned:
Finland stop writing checks in 1993, the Netherlands in 2002 and Poland in 2006. Germany, Belgium and Switzerland have also followed suit. Austria, Belarus,Czech republic, Hungary Latvia, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia Slovenia and Ukraine also do not accept cheques. I think it is fear to suggest that the vast majority of European transactions are now electronic.
New Zealand was phasing them out too, mainly because most people no longer use them - not sure if that process is complete yet.
In countries with fragmented banking systems such as the USA they're certainly useful. However they're exceptionally easy to Falicify.
The countries that have done away with them have done so predominantly because of the costs and time associated with processing them. Electronic systems on a whole are far faster, safer, more convenient and more accurate. I'm not saying they're not without their issues, of course they are. Predominantly because they're designed, programmed and operated by us humans!

 

[pelerine]

When France, a country which prides itself (herself?) on the widely used digital systems, tried to finish with cheques there was a protest (a French speciality) and voilà, we have them still!!

 

[Kathor1]

When France, a country which prides itself (herself?) on the widely used digital systems, tried to finish with cheques there was a protest (a French speciality) and voilà, we have them still!!

You still have cheques in France but cheques issued by a French bank are useless in Spain: They are either not accepted or if they are the fee for cashing a cheque from another EU country will be extremely high.

The eurocheque system that ceased to exist in 2002 had the advantage that one could use these cheques for payment in other countries than one's own - I have used them for payment in retail stores in the UK and in France in the 1980s and 1990s, and presumably even on holidays in Spain. Oh well, most of you will never have heard of this and will not understand the feeling of nostalgia ...

 

[Tincatinker]

I can remember when I could get rat-arsed on the convertible value of a ten-bob (shilling) note. And most here will definitely not understand my feelings of nostalgia (or age)

 

[pelerine]

Was this before you went decimal(have I got this right?)?

 

[Kathor1]

Was this before you went decimal

Oh, I remember the arguments against decimalisation, such as a loss of arithmetics skills, and I now start to wonder about the arguments against card payment ...

The case against decimalisation - a great read.

 

[Tincatinker]

Was this before you went decimal(have I got this right?)?

Yes. Cider was 10d a pint. After decimation it was 10p. Good beer was two shillings and sixpence, suddenly it was 25p.

That was when I fell in love with Spain. I discovered I could get absolutely rat-arsed on 50 peseta

 

[pelerine]

Too late to read this now, but thank you! Will read tomorrow…
After having learned, with great difficulty, to work out adding up pounds, shillings and pence, I remember waiting in a supermarket queue the laments of old ladies complaining about the difficulties of doing the sums in this new system of what they had spent.

 

[Tincatinker]

1971 I was bar-man, pot-man and general labour at the Red Lion, Draycott. “Ma” ran the place despite me. On decimation day I asked her how much to charge for a pint. Her reply 10 pence. I tried to explain but she couldn’t be bothered with all that. “My ciders 10 pence, it’s always been 10 pence, it’s still 10 pence”.

There were near riots in the bar that night. Much slamming down of tankards and storming out. Threats of boycott and worse. A couple of weeks later Ma remarked “dunno what all that fuss was. They’re all still drinking’ an there’s more money in my till than there’s ever been”.

 

[Karinhi]

I assume from your spelling of cheque that you are probably American or Canadian. (Especially as I can't think of anywhere else other than Britain and Australia that's still using cheques.)

But we’re talking about Spain.
As @Kathar1na posted elsewhere, the cost for a DEBIT card Transaction in Spain is 0,2%, or just 2 cents for every €10. Which is why Spaniards now use them so freely.
Please note as others have mentioned elsewhere this is a RECENT and rapidly growing trend i.e in the last two or three years ( since covid).

A CREDIT card is considerably higher , at around 6 or even 7%, depending on the bank


I think you missed this:
“True, but with the new chip cards it's extremely hard - theoretically impossible (but I'm always slightly sceptical) - for them to be compromised.”
Older card’s were indeed often compromised.

And as to your point about them having to strip you, believe me, in some countries (NO, I’m NOT talking about Spain), that’s exactly what they might do. They know all of our ‘tricks’ - many will even know more than I, and believe me I have researched this extensively because I've travelled extensively. They check all obvious places - waist, neck, foot etc. If you're lucky they won't wrench/ cut your foot removing the foot wallet.
But I admit that in Spain it's a reasonable precaution and highly effective. Robberies in Spain are extremely rare -especially of pilgrims. The vast majority of loses are simply opportunistic thefts and in that regard you're protecting yourself well.

Hi Peter-Just so you know, Canadians do spell "cheque" like most of the world. We remain a member of the Commonwealth.
It's the Americans who have many of their own spelling versions of English words.

 

[C clearly]

Just so you know, Canadians do spell "cheque" like most of the world. We remain a member of the Commonwealth.

I think you will find that Canadians use a mixture of spellings - US and UK. Same as we use a mixture of date format. I like that, as it confuses people who want to jump to conclusions and stereotypes!

However, it IS safe to assume that if someone writes "check" in this context, they are from either the US or Canada. If they write "cheque", it is safe to assume that they are not from the US, but you really don't know more than that.

 

[Peterexpatkiwi]

My humble apologies.

I had seen a Canadian forum member use the wrong ( American) version, presumably they were atypical....

 

[C clearly]

My humble apologies.

I had seen a Canadian forum member use the wrong ( American) version, presumably they were atypical....

No, it is not "wrong" and as I said, Canadians do not have a uniform approach.