Spending Cash in US
Discussion
I’ve spent about 6 weeks this year in the US. You do still get the odd cash only business but they’re rare especially in cities. I think I’ve withdrawn less than a thousand dollars across that period and had to make a concerted effort in the last few days to spend it so could have easily made do with just a few hundred bucks.
Only "card only" thing I have seen were the toll roads around San Francisco. Because the booths were shut so you had to do it online.
Everywhere else was happy to take cash.
Its a much more cash orientated culture IMHO so unless you are at some trendy bar in the valley that only takes bit coin or something you should be fine.
Everywhere else was happy to take cash.
Its a much more cash orientated culture IMHO so unless you are at some trendy bar in the valley that only takes bit coin or something you should be fine.
Never seen anywhere having a problem with cash, but mind you I'm mainly in vegas where cash is a little more common then most areas. There will be places that dont want to take $100 bills though.
The real question is why bother if you can get away with as little as possible and just use a free fx card like revolut.
The real question is why bother if you can get away with as little as possible and just use a free fx card like revolut.
NNH said:
The main use for cash as a visitor is getting fuel. Most self-service pumps don't take foreign cards, so you need to go inside and prepay. It's much easier to do that with cash and get change, than to do it with a card and try to get the partial refund back onto the card.
That used to be true in my experience but no longer. I haven’t had to go into a gas station at all this year to prepay like I used to when the pay at pump thing insisted on a zip code. These days it’s just enter your PIN and off you go, in fact I fuelled up in Maine yesterday with just a swipe of my U.K card at the pump. $103, that was a bit of a shock!djc206 said:
NNH said:
The main use for cash as a visitor is getting fuel. Most self-service pumps don't take foreign cards, so you need to go inside and prepay. It's much easier to do that with cash and get change, than to do it with a card and try to get the partial refund back onto the card.
That used to be true in my experience but no longer. I haven’t had to go into a gas station at all this year to prepay like I used to when the pay at pump thing insisted on a zip code. These days it’s just enter your PIN and off you go, in fact I fuelled up in Maine yesterday with just a swipe of my U.K card at the pump. $103, that was a bit of a shock!NNH said:
Sounds like the East Coast is well ahead of us in California!
I’ve filled up in CA (only the once, too bloody expensive), NM, AZ, NV, UT, TX and ME so far this year and all fine with my Johnny Foreigner card, I think a couple may have even been contactless! MA tomorrow and then that’s me done with my tour of US gas stations for the year. It was a pleasant surprise not to have to pop in and out of the station each time. I’ve noticed there’s been a sudden increase in chip and PIN and contactless acceptance here. About bloody time huh!djc206 said:
NNH said:
Sounds like the East Coast is well ahead of us in California!
I’ve filled up in CA (only the once, too bloody expensive), NM, AZ, NV, UT, TX and ME so far this year and all fine with my Johnny Foreigner card, I think a couple may have even been contactless! MA tomorrow and then that’s me done with my tour of US gas stations for the year. It was a pleasant surprise not to have to pop in and out of the station each time. I’ve noticed there’s been a sudden increase in chip and PIN and contactless acceptance here. About bloody time huh!I am in the US frequently and rarely use cash for anything. I used to have the credit card problem until I discovered that the zip code issue could be solved by only entering the numeric part of my Canadian postal code .Thus M5C 3H8
became 53800.
Nowadays an increasing number of places use PINs anyway,and all drive-ins take cards. Most restaurants have a tip option on the checkout screen.
I usually have about $200 in my wallet for any exceptions.
became 53800.
Nowadays an increasing number of places use PINs anyway,and all drive-ins take cards. Most restaurants have a tip option on the checkout screen.
I usually have about $200 in my wallet for any exceptions.
RDMcG said:
I am in the US frequently and rarely use cash for anything. I used to have the credit card problem until I discovered that the zip code issue could be solved by only entering the numeric part of my Canadian postal code .Thus M5C 3H8
became 53800.
Nowadays an increasing number of places use PINs anyway,and all drive-ins take cards. Most restaurants have a tip option on the checkout screen.
I usually have about $200 in my wallet for any exceptions.
Our experience is similar. My parents live in the USA (we live in the UK) and until the Plague we went 2 or 3 times a year. We take ~$250 between us for emergencies and tipping, but everything else goes on our usual UK cards. The last time we went (pre-Plague) Chip & PIN was beginning to appear (amusing having a checkout clerk explain it to me) and the only places I had trouble with (UK) cards was 'pay at the pump' gas stations where they want a ZIP code and even entering my parents' one didn't work (I assume it tries to match the card's billing address with the ZIP code and fails miserably - programmers are stupid). From the sound of the preceding posts even that is a much smaller problem now.became 53800.
Nowadays an increasing number of places use PINs anyway,and all drive-ins take cards. Most restaurants have a tip option on the checkout screen.
I usually have about $200 in my wallet for any exceptions.
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