Haha, have you never been to Germany? Tons of places still don't take credit cards.

I'm from EU (Slovakia) and not that far from Germany but surprisingly I have never been to Germany (not counting transit when I traveled through Germany in a train/bus or had to change flight) for some reason. I have always wanted to go but somehow I find places I want to go to more all the time so my travel to Germany keeps getting pushed down the list :D

Maybe 2-3 years ago, but at least in the cities the card acceptance is quite good. Berlin in particular and cafes in general being the exception.

… and bakeries, my god. I haven't seen a single bakery that accepts cards (EC or credit). Wanna buy €30 worth of cake to bring to work for your birthday? Nope, cash only.

Most Kamps do, some are franchise though.

I live in Munich and it still feels pretty hit and miss to me.

ATM withdrawals is the main selling point though.

There are plenty of cards in the UK that do not have a foreign transaction charge on purchases (nationwide, lloyds avios, for example).

From my experience though, Monzo has been much more reliable when traveling. It works in much more places in Asia for example. I traveled around Asia for a while before with my TSB UK debit card and it was getting declined almost everywhere, even in big cities like Hong Kong or Taipei (and yes I called TSB and told them I will be traveling Asia for few months in case they have some restrictions on debit cards in place, didn't help at all).

It got to a point I had to open local bank accounts and do wire transfers from my UK bank account to local bank accounts and use the local debit card. I just couldn't get my TSB/Lloyds card to work anywhere except high end western shops like Apple Store.

My use case is frequent trips to Sydney for work - a surprising number of cafes and restaurants there are cash only.

Hmm, that's surprising. I have traveled a lot in Asia (never to Australia though) and from that experience I know a lot of Asia is still cash based but Australia I'd expect every coffee / convenience shop to accept Visa/Mastercard.

That is fascinating. As someone who lives in Sydney's outer suburbs, I simply never need cash. For anything. It's almost the exact opposite of Germany, where I lived for most of the last 5 years.

Was your experience all within the inner city?

Mostly yes - around George St. for work.

For sure many coffee shops and convenience stores accept card, but I definitely find myself having to pay cash quite often (just for instance, the laksa place on Hunter street).