[FabHK]

To be fair, I find it absolutely absurd that credit card companies siphon off 3% or so of all retail purchases, and then distribute a part of it back to their "most valuable customers" in the form of miles and cash backs and similar time-consuming nonsense. It is redistribution from the poor, those using cash and those not being able to pay off credit cards in full, to the rich.

The EU has imposed caps on these interchange fees [1], which is one reason Europeans are not inundated by junk mail offering credit cards, and may be a reason that credit cards are not ubiquitous. Having said that, I find that I can pay electronically in most places, including Deutsche Bahn ticket machines (or just buy them in the app).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_fee#European_Union