EMV Chip & Pin Credit Card for Europe

<p>A leisurely introduction: On Thursday 7&nbsp;May&nbsp;2014 we drove&nbsp;into&nbsp;Karlsruhe, Germany, enjoyed our picnic lunch in the castle park, and spent the rest of the day exploring this classic city on&nbsp;foot. It was fascinating, as so many European cities are.&nbsp;The next morning as we&nbsp;got back on our motorcycle&nbsp;and headed for France,&nbsp;I knew our fuel level was low. I debated whether to gas up as we passed several opportunities in the small German towns along our blissful minor-roads route which hugged&nbsp;the Rhine.&nbsp;Chose not too; gotta wait until we&#39;re below 1/4 tank.&nbsp;As we crossed&nbsp;the Rhine&nbsp;on the L 78b -to- D 87 bridge&nbsp;I figured that&nbsp;we had about 40 km left. That would get us to Haguenau where,&nbsp;if not before,&nbsp;petrol would&nbsp;be available.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I&#39;d forgotten how sparse gas stations in France have become. I grew&nbsp;concerned when the few that we passed were closed. Passing Soufflenheim I decided that it was time to deal with our 1/8 tank.&nbsp;&nbsp;First two stations there were&nbsp;closed. OK, time to consult the GPS. Aha!, a Carrefour nearby. We get there&nbsp;and it&#39;s closed. What&#39;s up? This became incident #1. And we quickly learned that&nbsp;May 8 in this part of France is&nbsp;VE Day and widely observed.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>It&#39;s time for us to get a genuine EMV Chip &amp; Pin credit card for our upcoming two months of&nbsp;drivng&nbsp;in France. Traveling there last year, always well aware of our petrol status,&nbsp;four separate times&nbsp;we had to wait at an&nbsp;EMV-only automated pump for a sympathetic local to accept our cash for gas. (These incidents&nbsp;were&nbsp;major time sinks, but I have to admit they&nbsp;made for some great memories. And those back roads and small towns of France were&nbsp;heavenly.)</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Before travelling last year I thought that our US Chip card would work, but it turns out that it&#39;s&nbsp;Chip &amp; Signature, not Chip &amp; Pin.&nbsp;(Aside: Rick Steves in his article on EMV cards a while back&nbsp;downplayed&nbsp;the&nbsp;necessity of having a genuine EMV card, asserting that there always&nbsp;are&nbsp;alternatives. Bad&nbsp;advice&nbsp;imho, judging from our&nbsp;number of incidents in France. Aside from petrol, many exits that we passed on the Autoroutes were EMV-only.)</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Recommendations, anyone? All that matters to me is that they work. So far the two on my radar are United Nations Federal Credit Union&nbsp;and Andrews Federal Credit Union. I&#39;ll soon contact them.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Thanks, Robert (and Judy)</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>PS: How does one insert paragraph breaks in this crazy text-edit program? I wanted several.</p>