Baltics travel & credit card transactions

John and Irene

We are booked on the July 5th trip for St Petersburg & the Baltics. Have prior travelers had any difficulty using credit cards that don't use the chip & pin technology? Thanks!

L and E

Dear John and Irene,

We are on the same trip as you are and would be interested in communicating beforehand if convenient for you. We have traveled before and have not had any difficulty in Europe with credit cards.

L and E

lovesgolf1

We did the Russian Glories, Baltic Treasures trip in August 2012. When we notified our credit card companies that we would be away they made sure to warn us that several of the places we were visiting were not very safe for credit cards (I know that Russia was one but do not remember where else). We did use our credit cards on the trip but only used them in places we thought were reputable. We were very careful and had no problems.

Last year on our Scandanavian tour, we were asked in many places when we tried to use our credit cards (with no chip) if we had a pin number. We said no and all of the transactions went through without any problems. Over the past several months, I have switched our credit cards to include a chip. It is supposed to be a little more secure and banks are happy to do this for you...no charge.

jeffr775

John,

Hope this isn't too late to help. We just returned from the Baltics/Russia trip and had no trouble anywhere using credit cards without the chip and pin. Everywhere we used them they have the ability to use either chip or magnetic strip.

We notified our CC companies of where we'd be and only had one problem. Interesting that it was on the last day when my wife purchased some souvenirs at the Moscow airport before we departed.

As an aside, we neither saw, nor felt any issues related to the problems with Ukraine.

This was a great tour- busy but well done. We hope you enjoy yours as much as we did.

Jeff

Raj

We are also on July 5 Baltic Seas Tour, arriving in Copenhagen for pre-stay on July 4. Would love to connect with anyone on the tour, especially pre-stay. Raj and Sharmi Mehta

Leigh

I had a credit card that was chip & signature, but not chip & pin. I never had any problem, and everyone readily recognized that I just had to sign instead of entering a pin.

My traveling companion did not have a card with a chip. She was fine everywhere except two places, and I think both of those were in Oslo (a restaurant and grocery store).