Just thought it might be good to know for some of you (from US or UK)who are thinking to travel Europe and want to pay services/hotels etc. via their credit cards. Make sure your bank knows you are travelling and that there will be transactions from over here initiated by you otherwise it could happen that you end up in a shop or somewhere and your card holding bank denies the transaction and if you are unlucky and nobody is reachable that you can confirm with that it is you and all is fine, you may end up not being able to pay your bill for that day if you do not have enough cash money.
Hope this helps
Brigitte
P.S. Also if you are buying overseas with your card and you are not getting your ordered goods and no feedback, it maybe because of the same reason that payment could not be arranged that way but you were
not informed about it. I am finding this is happening more and more mainly with UK and US cards and that there is special confirmation necessary from the card holder and after talking today to our card holding company I was told about people standing in shops as mentioned above not being able to pay. Wonder why that is a growing issue?
Great advice Brigitte. I just recently made a purchase from here (US) to the UK that was a substnatial sum. It was rejected and I had to call the CC company to make sure they knew it was me that initiated it. So, the lesson here is you don’t have to be traveling to be inconvenienced. Just give them a call prior to the purchase.
Speaking as someone who worked in the credit card industry for a number of years, I can tell you that the main driver is this: Credit card companies are always looking for ways to reduce their losses (costs) and one way to do that is by profiling card holder’s spending habits (where you shop, how much you typically spend, etc.), and then block any transactions (pending approval) that fall outside what is “Normal” for you. So, if you aren’t Donald Trump, or some supermodel who spends half her time running around Europe buying expensive stuff in every other shop on the Rue…well, you can expect to get a bit of trouble when you finally do take a vacation and use that card (or even just spend more than usual without travelling, as others have found out).
Sadly, even if you do notify your credit card company ahead of time, in most cases it won’t help because the flagging of accounts and blocking of purchases is all done automatically via computer program and, as a former credit card company call center manager, I can tell you there are probably 5 people (out of 1000 or 1500) in the entire call center who know how to adjust the system (after you call) to keep you from getting blocked automatically. Of course Murphy will see to it that these 5 people won’t be anywhere near a phone when you call, so…
Well, I must have gotten one of the five or my CC company is above the standard. My purchase just went through as requested. WOO HOO. More details to follow in a couple of weeks.
I’ve made some substantial purchases overseas on my c.c. Most of the time i’ve been able to call the c.c. company in advance (at least 24 hours) and have not had a problem, though they usually say “it was a good thing you called because this probably would have been blocked..”
One time i didn’t give advance warnig, I had to wait about 15 minutes while the c.c. verified the account, fortunately, my wife was home to answer the call, if she wasn’t i’d’a been sol.
So, call ahead people… save yourself and the merchant the aggravation.
While I was in Ireland I used my debit card at the ATMs and actually got money quicker than I would here at home. I also got the best exchange rate by doing this.
I had a problem with a credit card company (MBNA) declining my purchases while traveling. I promptly canceled the card after this happened a couple of times. There are simply too many card companies out there competing for consumers to put up with this kind of crap. The flunky on the phone tried to convince me that their policy was for my own good. I’d encourage all of you not to do business with companies that overreach themselves in this way. The two card companies I do business with now have never tried to pull this trick.
The only way to discourage invasive policies like this is to make them unprofitable.
Same with me. We used both credit and debit and ATMs in Ireland with no problems. We have also used them in Switzerland and Italy. It’s really nice not having to carry 500 Euro around just because the banks might not be open when you need it. And in Italy the banks all close for two hours at lunch time.
Mike
PS on second thought, this might be because my wife visits family in Switz. and Italy at least once a year so she has a record of using her card in Europe.
