I think maybe this is a cultural thing. In Europe it seems people associate "credit" with "being in debt" which of course isn't (necessarily) true. It just means someone else is on the line until you reconcile, and this is the beauty of credit cards – they make it tremendously easy to safeguard your own money. Just make sure to pay off the bill at the end of the month and everything is solid.

Because of this, credit cards in Europe tend to not have the same great benefits you can find on cards in the US. AMEX is pretty good still, but there isn't exactly tons of competition in the credit card space here.