[yladiz]

> The most annoying thing to me was how certain neighborhoods flat out do not accept Visa / Mastercard. Basically every other developed nation accepts Visa, I was annoyed and decided to not go back to areas where they literally couldn't take my money.

Not only in Netherlands - you would also experience this in Germany, for example. In many parts of Europe, even in their respective capital, you’ll find that many places don’t accept cards and you need cash. If Germany is any indication it’s becoming more common to accept cards but it’s still pretty easy to find places that either only take cash or only take cards above some minimum like 10 or 20 euros.

[cr1895]

It’s not really comparable to Germany. Almost everywhere in NL accepts Maestro cards (PIN) or whatever (sometimes not even accepting cash). It’s specifically credit cards that are sometimes less useful.

[yladiz]

Ah, interesting, and I realize now I was conflating credit cards with other kinds of cards like Maestro or Girocard (which is a German specific debit card).

In my experience some places do take either cash or debit, but I think that it's becoming more uncommon that you'll find this arrangement outside of somewhere like a government office or the post office now, and either you'll wind up with cash only or a place that takes any kind of card. A few places do not take cash but that's very rare. I can't speak for other countries as well as Germany and so you're right it does seem different in the Netherlands (although leading to the same outcome for the OP, that a credit card can't be used).

[fiat_fandango]

It was weird, because the geographic delineation was seemingly random. I could travel by train three hours outside of Amsterdam and encounter zero issues with Apple Pay or VISA. But certain neighborhoods in Amsterdam, especially De Pijp seemed to have a militant stance against non dutch payment processors.

[com]

It’s a perception about cost, no longer really true since PSD2 interchange caps.