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Comment by nottorp | Hacker News Reader

You may want to mention that no small store accepts visa/mc in NL :)

Apparently because the commission is sky high. In other parts of the EU that's been regulated and I can buy as low as two apples with a credit card.

If you're a tourist in NL, bring cash.

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Why don't they just advertise a minimum purchase or fee for using a card? You're not supposed to do it but it seems like every small party store/gas station in the US does so.

Because all the natives pay using Debit cards, so it is only foreign visitors that have this problem, and stores in the really touristy parts do support credit cards.

I am pretty sure that contactless payments around here do all support credit cards btw as AFAIK that's how Apple Pay and Google Wallet work, but I haven't tried it much.

Did this change recently? I had no problem paying with my German Maestro/EC for everything a couple of years ago. (Just like in most European countries, really)

Maestro is a different animal. I only have Visa/MC and I had to carry cash. Two examples were a random restaurant in a mall and a random tiny cigarette shop. At the latter they told me Visa can cost like 10%.

As far as I know, Maestro is (part of? compatible with?) the normal bank card standard that's supported everywhere.

I only have my credit card for online purchases, and only for webshops that don't support iDeal. There's little to no domestic credit card use here.

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