Credit card and/or cash

[Picklesmini]

We are going to the Fjords and we are unsure if it is worth taking local currency with us as well and card.  I like to have some with me but not sure if card is preferred everywhere.  Just thinking about if you are just picking up a drink or snacks.  Many thanks in advance.  

[Poole Boy]

Credit Card, no need for cash

 

[buchanan101]

22 minutes ago, Picklesmini said:

We are going to the Fjords and we are unsure if it is worth taking local currency with us as well and card.  I like to have some with me but not sure if card is preferred everywhere.  Just thinking about if you are just picking up a drink or snacks.  Many thanks in advance.  

Went to Oslo last summer. Didn’t use any cash. (Restaurants, shops, concert, museums etc). Scandis are even more cashless than we are. 
 

QM2 or QA to fjords? If latter in June, see you there 

[Picklesmini]

Queen Anne in September.  Greetings from Ware, Herts

[hallasm]

I would suggest a contactless card - it will work everywhere. Alternatively, a chip card. ApplePay is also a good solution.

[buchanan101]

3 hours ago, hallasm said:

I would suggest a contactless card - it will work everywhere. Alternatively, a chip card. ApplePay is also a good solution.

Every card I have is both contactless and had a chip… 

 

I recommend a Curve card. This is a debit card which “fronts” credit cards (though not Amex). It has 0% or 0.5% foreign exchange fees rather than the ~3% on most other cards. And if the credit card you are “fronting” has Avios or cashback you get that. You can have a number of credit cards “fronted” by Curve. 
 

You can even pay the taxman using it (up to a limit) and get Avios for the “pleasure”. 

[kaisatsu]

There are places where a magnetic strip will not work (hence the recommendation for chip or contactless), but otherwise a card will cover 95% of all possible scenarios.

 

Tipping in cash is not a thing. Even if your tour guides mention it, it’s absolutely not something you should feel you need to do. They are legally entitled to a comfortable living wage by their employer.

 

Paying for something small by card is expected. I have made purchases of less than 1 USD on my bank card. Vendors are used to doing everything by card, so switching to cash for small amounts is inconvenient.

 

The only places you might not be able to use a chip or contactless card would be very small independent operations. Kids selling baked goods for a fundraiser, a onetime pop-up vendor at a food or craft festival, or an independent free walking tour*. These kinds of operations typically use our local person-to-person payment app Vipps, which isn’t available to foreigners. Locals use this system extensively, even to split restaurant bills, so most of us never carry cash or even think about it.

 

*Any guides affiliated with museums or tourism organizations will be paid by their employer, so this only applies to the kind of free tours that are available in some larger cities and operate wholly on tips in lieu of a fixed price.

Edited April 13 by kaisatsu

[buchanan101]

@kaisatsu the US is behind Europe. Mag stripes are never used these days. Almost everything is tapped. Above a certain value you need PIN code and may need card inserting to read chip. 
 

Sweden is most card accepting country in Europe (had ~40 business trips there in the 10 years before COVID and never used cash once). Norway logically is not far behind (where the OP is headed). UK is 2nd most card friendly. I never carry cash. 
 

Even the pop up vendors you mention may have card machines. All the street vendors in Copenhagen in December had card machines. Local fish and chip van man here in rural England has a card machine that even takes Amex (got to get those Avios…) 
 

I remember in 2016 in NYC some vendors still ran cards through those manual swiping machines with the bit of paper. In 2022 they had caught up somewhat. 
 

And you can get a number of cards now that have no exchange fees. (I recommend Curve for U.K. citizens). And all the well travelled people on this board know to always  pay in local currency. 

[kaisatsu]

48 minutes ago, buchanan101 said:

the US is behind Europe. Mag stripes are never used these days. Almost everything is tapped. Above a certain value you need PIN code and may need card inserting to read chip

I’m aware that the US is behind Europe, which is why I mentioned the old magnetic strip cards. I was in the US last week and was pleased to see that they have mostly moved over to contactless and chip, but I have still seen US people with mag-strip cards, so I thought it would be worth mentioning that they might not work everywhere here in Norway.

 

50 minutes ago, buchanan101 said:

Even the pop up vendors you mention may have card machines. All the street vendors in Copenhagen in December had card machines.

I don’t know if the OP is beginning their cruise in Copenhagen, since they only mention the fjords, but my information still holds true for Norway. A one-time vendor here in Norway is very unlikely to purchase a card machine. The street vendors you describe in Copenhagen sound more like the people who do so on a more periodic basis.

 

Of course Norway has plenty of farm stalls, knitters, and other micro-scale independent street vendors, and those will all accept card. However, a teenager selling cookies to fund their school’s music corps may not have ordered a card terminal in advance, and often choose instead to rely on the Vipps payment app.

 

Similarly, a food vendor at a local event may just choose to use Vipps for the convenience, since they don’t have to handle the card terminal and then rewash their hands.

 

(PS - If it wasn’t clear from my original post, I live in Norway.)

[buchanan101]

@kaisatsu suspect anyone near cruise ships will have invested in a card machine. I always have a few Euros sitting in my wallet. Can’t see any reason to get NOK.

 

Was in Oslo last summer (for Springsteen and a few days break - really liked it). Wasn’t as nearly as expensive as I expected. Locals were complaining about exchange rate… probably cheaper than London