Toll Payment in France
Having just returned from a trip to France where we used some of the Motorways it occurred to me that newcomers might not know the payment method has changed. The basket for cash and the assistant have gone. Payment appears to only have two methods. Credit/Debit cards or by signing up in advance for the electronic windscreen attachment. The latter lets you sail through alleviating the stretching to reach on the passengers side. A slight downside of using the bank card is the charges. The exchange rate is usually poor but this has an additional Non-Sterling Transaction fee added each time. I believe the electronic tag is by Liber-t or VIA-T .
I hope this might be of interest. Please let me know if the details are inaccurate.
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You can get tags from various sources such as SANEF (through the Club). We have had an ATMB tag for several years and get charged a very small amount (1.70 Euros I think) for each month that it is used.
There are some credit cards such as Halifax Clarity that do not charge transaction costs and use inter-bank exchange rates. The tag charging is linked direct to your card so the payment is automatic in arrears.
OH really struggles to reach the machine at the pèage so the tag has been invaluable.
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Different lanes at the toll booths accept payment in different ways and are marked accordingly. Some lanes are certainly reserved for vehicles with a tag, some lanes take credit/ debit cards, and some lanes still take cash fed into slots in the machine. The family in front of me is always the one laboriously dong that - slowly searching their purses and pockets for cash.
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You can still pay by cash just as you have always done, a lot of French still pay by cash, you may have used the wrong toll lane, the cash lane has a card with a symbol showing different size coins , there are some lanes with card only. The machine itself has a slot for coins and a slot for notes, change is dispensed into a tray.
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I used a Halifax credit card without problem, never queued either but then that was out of peak season. My wife never tries to reach, she just steps out of the car, credit card in and out and on our way.
Debit cards are a no no because of charges
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Tolltickets.com can supply you with a tag for a large motorhome - but at a price.
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To avoid the exchange rate issue you could get a Sanef Tag from the UK based organistaion.
I had earlier been reading the thread re Safefill cylinders which, in my circumstances are a lot of faffing about for a small saving-whereas the Tag for french Autoroutes is a small ammount of money to save a lot of faffing............you pays yer money etc etc!
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We have been using a SANEF Tag for some years. They convert from euros to sterling so as far as your UK bank account is concerned its a local transaction and no further costs. I have always found the SANEF exchange rate to be perfectly good. Some of the other tags allow you to have the tolls charged to a credit card, not available with SANEF, so you have to make sure that you have the right card otherwise there will be extra charges.
David
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Have used a Sanef tag for many years, both solo and towing. Users need to be aware that at busy times it can take some time (I.e several seconds) for the tag to be read and work. Meanwhile you sit and wait thinking it's failed.
We have had a tag fail twice, nothing wrong with the tag but for some reason the system failed to respond. Procedure is to take a ticket and hand ticket and tag to a manned booth at the end of the toll stage. Hopefully you will find one.
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Our tag is also ATMB there is a small charge every month you use it, however if you use it three times in any month the charge reduces. You don’t need to pay transaction charges on debit cards. Metro Bank offer fee free banking, and their exchange rate seems good. Just returned and my toll bill for the month was just over €101 Metro charged me £90. Shop around.
Ken
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You can get really exploited, when the currency conversion is done at source rather than by your own bank. As an example earlier I withdrew €220 from an atm, If I had accepted the displayed GBP cost it would have been £210, when it came through on my statement it was less than £200, you do get royally ripped off spending in pounds abroad. Of course this assumes that you are using a card such as a clarity that doesn’t rip you off by charging you for foreign currency.
We used our ATMB tag for the first time it seemed to work pretty well only a couple of times did it need waving about. It seems that there is a tag reader on all the payment machines that you can put the tag on if it doesn’t read automatically.
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Didn’t know that Boff. Had trouble with our BMW towing vehicle and had to get out once or twice! Type of windscreen I think. No problem with the motorhome.
It is becoming increasingly common for ATMs to offer the sterling amount which, as you say, will end up costing you quite a bit more. If you buy a vignette at the Swiss border you will also be offered Euros which is probably even more costly - Swiss Francs to Euros to Pounds.
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For anyone who is interested, there is another discussion on Tags, especially the SANEF Tag, here:
https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/club-together/discussions/sites-touring/overseas-sites-touring/sanef/
David
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