Tip: Use Your Chase Sapphire Reserve at German Train Ticket Machines
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Chip and Pin cards are commonplace in Europe, but most US credit cards aren't issued with this functionality. This renders many US credit cards useless at overseas unattended purchasing machines, like train ticket machines.
One of the few excellent travel cards that has Chip + PIN technology is the Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite Mastercard,making it an excellent option for a trip to Europe - especially because you can use your points to wipe out these travel purchases. But there's another option for buying train tickets using a card that's earned a place in many of our wallets at The Points Guy.
While the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card is officially a Chip + Signature card, it acts like a Chip + PIN card at the ticket machines of Deutsche Bahn (DB), Germany's state rail operator. Since these machines are used for everything from long-haul train tickets to local S-Bahn metro and even bus tickets, having a credit card that works at these machines is a big benefit. It'll save you from needing to have enough cash or putting the purchase on a debit card. Even better, you'll earn 3x Ultimate Rewards points from these travel purchases. And, there are no foreign transaction fees.
So, how does it work? After selecting your ticket option, click Pay and see if there's a credit card option. Not all purchases will allow you to use a credit card. If the card symbol is there, enter the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card and wait for the payment screen to prompt a PIN. Then just enter any four digits and click confirm.
It seems not to matter which numbers you use. At first, I entered the same PIN for all purchases, not sure if I had created a PIN by doing so. But, after mistyping this PIN once and having the purchase be confirmed, I've used random digits ever since.
Have you found any other cards that act like a Chip + PIN?