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Last night I saw a report on the television featuring British people who had travelled abroad and then, after frequent spending on their credit card, discovered that the bank had blocked it. I think many people have been stuck in this predicament and it can be extremely embarrassing when it happens.

One fellow and his wife were stranded in New York City and pretty much confined to their hotel room after Capitol One had placed a block on their card during their holiday; they discovered this when it came time for them to pay for a meal. One guy was holidaying in Italy when he discovered his card was blocked by Abbey; he spent nearly three hungry days waiting for access to his cash once again. None of these people had left a contact number so that their banks could call and verify their card use and in both cases they were travelling reliant on just one card.

Now despite the fact that these people had done nothing wrong their banks informed them that unusual activity on their cards had been detected so hence the block. Most often it is not a human who places this block – it will be a computer programmed to detect such activity and go into anti-fraud mode. But once again, it is not only embarrassing to the individual but inconvenient in the extreme.

How can you prevent this happening to you…?

Well, basically you cannot, but you can take easy steps to ensure that you have an alternative. There is so much credit card fraud these days that the banks have highly sensitive security settings implemented and all you have to do is use your card several times a day abroad – sometimes even at home – and the alarm bells will ring at database HQ.

Those folk would not have suffered the degree of inconvenience if they had not relied exclusively on one card. I think it is crazy to travel abroad and only have one road to your cash. The best way around this is to have at least two cards and each card should be from a different bank. When we travel we have about four cards each from different banks so that if one card gets blocked (yes, it has happened to us as well) we still have another one to fall back on whilst the bank is sorting the problem out. 

You don’t have to maintain large amounts of money in all the accounts, just enough to get you by should you have any problems. It makes sense. So here’s a quick list of things to do to avoid problems…

* Inform your bank/s before you leave and go away on your trip that you will be using the card for expenditures. This gives you a certain degree of security but not 100% – remember computers set the block in place in most cases.

* Ensure you have at least two cards; one for intended use and the other/s as a backup in an emergency.

* Help your bank to help you; make sure they have your mobile phone number so that they can call you. In most cases the bank will attempt to call you prior to placing a block on your card.

* Handy Tip – get both a Visa and a MasterCard, but from seperate banks. There are many countries in the world who do not take Visa and vice versa re MasterCard.

* Final handy tip – going to Cuba/Vietnam? make sure your card is not issued by an American bank such as MBNA as it will not be accepted, nor will American Express travellers cheques.

Have a great time on holiday and don’t forget to be a good scout – be prepared!

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