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My new credit card (Mastercard) has no magnetic stripe. It has a chip, Near Field Communication (NFC), and the 16-digit number along with validity date and CVV code. Will I encounter any limitations if I try to use it in the United States, for example to rent cars or hotel rooms? In 2019, do magnetic stripe payments still exist in the USA or has chip and PIN (or chip and sign) meanwhile become ubiquitous there as well? AFAIK the rest of the world uses chip and PIN (or no card payments at all), and if I remember correctly most payments I made in spring 2018 in the USA were with chip and PIN, but I'm not sure if magnetic stripe payments have disappeared like they did in Europe one or two decades ago.

This question differs from German credit card in the US because my card doesn't have a magnetic strip at all.

gerrit
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1 Answers1

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At this point in 2019, nearly every credit card terminal in the US is set up to read both chip and contactless. There are still some exceptions out there, (e.g. you can't use contactless at Walmart because they want to force people to use their own payment app) but while they're uncommon it's hard to predict where you'll run into one. Except for paying at the pump at gas stations, which seems to be the last place where chips aren't read, but these probably wouldn't have worked with your card even if it had a magnetic stripe. (But in that case you just pay inside.) You'll probably want to have some cash on hand and/or another card, just to be sure.

P.S. While you didn't ask, someone else who reads this will need to know: If you use a MC/Visa Debit card at a US payment terminal, and it asks you "Debit or Credit", always select Credit. "Debit" in the US is a completely different network that MC/Visa do not run on.

Michael Hampton
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