We're in the UK for a few weeks then France for a week later this year. Any suggestions on while we're there whether we should put all payments directly on our NZ credit card or if we get some other option like a travel card or stored value card? It looks like we pay currency conversion fees plus a 2% transaction fee, less reward dollars, equals 1% transaction fee. We're not really too worried about 1% because most of the large payments like hotels will be done in advance.

Also, anyone been to these locations recently - is cash used much by small stores and subway / metro or is it mostly electronic now?

Also, based on this thread Airlo Europe plans looks like a good option for eSim. It looks like you can add data easily. Any recent experiences appreciated.

Update - questions largely sorted, I asked a follow-up question near the end of page 2. Likely to go with Giffgaf esim for the UK, if we run out of their roaming data in France we'll get Nomad short term esim.