Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 7:19 AM

Credit Cards And International Travel

Have you had your credit cards blocked when you were traveling overseas? To avoid this, it's often said that you should notify your credit card company before international travel. Is this really necessary? The Finance Buff described his experiment during his recent South American trip in which he didn't notify any banks of his trip and none of his debit and credit cards were declined.

KenBDG5,153 posts since
Nov 29, 2009
Rep Points: 117,128

1. Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 8:11 AM

Travel notification for my MasterCard and American Express cards can be done quickly online. However, with my Visa card, issued by PenFed, I have to call in and notify them of any travel plans. About seven years ago my MasterCard was blocked at a gas station while traveling out of state. I had to call and have the account unfrozen. The customer service representative told me that they they were just preventing possible fraudulent use of the card since I didn't notify them of my travel plans. I don't want to take any chances of my cards being blocked again so I go through the notification process anyway.

Shorebreak1,313 posts since
Apr 6, 2010
Rep Points: 4,954