While stores have been occasionally challenged because none of my credit cards have chips, only one (a Clark's shoe store in England) couldn't accommodate my American plastic.

I'm curious because I'm trying to figure out the timeline and extent of this chippy invasion. When did you run into problem with your card in England?

I was in Ireland and England (only Manchester) last year in October and never had any problems at all. This year's trip to the Netherlands was my first experience with the chippy and it was a real problem at almost every store, restaurant or ticket counter. They had credit card readers that were equipped with both a magnetic strip reader and a chippy reader, but the magnetic strip readers were all stuffed with cardboard and a notice not to use it. The ATMs and hotels all still allowed us to use magnetic strip cards. That was enough to get by. We carried a lot more Euros in cash than we normally would, but because the ATMs accepted our cards, that wasn't a big problem. We just had to figure it out.

At this point,I don't know whether this is a very recent development, is unique to Holland, or whether this is a global development that I'm going to have to deal with from now on.