A couple of days back a UK transaction was declined. 28degrees sent SMS something like, “did you just do overseas transaction? reply Y or N. If yes, you’ll need resubmit transaction” which I did & immediately OK.
Like others, I have an Ing Visa for overseas cash withdrawals. You can register travel countries in the ING app.
The dual card system works for me.
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We do the same. The most recent phone calls from Latitude were:
- when I was attempting to make a purchase from a faulty vending machine in Honolulu
- when a hotel in Matsumoto, Japan made an error and had to back out a transaction and then do a new one
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I suppose it is better for them to be overly cautious rather than one while travelling or getting home to find out fraudulent use had occurred. This would definitely put a dampener on the holiday.
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A few years ago Bank of America rolled out their latest greatest smartest ever fraud detection system and within moments their customers all over the USA and the world were getting their cards declined and locked. In spite of my travel settings being current and having not used the card anywhere new I had not often used it before, locked it was because the ‘amount was larger than the norm’ on a charge.
Their phone queues were epic (5+ hours was not atypical). The news was reporting havoc across the USA as their customers were stranded and could not even get taxis, bus, or train fares.
So long as ‘they’ make it easy and fast to contact them when something happens it is absolutely the right thing to do. Most companies screw up occasionally , and BoA did so royally.
Whether one is in a near location or far off land without ease of contact, little to no currency and a locked card one respects the why there is fraud security, but it does not calm ones temper at the moment or pay the bill in front of one.
The worst example would be when one is sans phone or in the USA sans phone with an international plan, and one needs to ring Sydney as their only option to deal with it.
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I already have a credit card with ME, works well no annual fee and low interest (not that that is an issue as I pay the bill when due). I want to dump the back-up GE/Latitude card (based on the Choice rating) for when I travel overseas. I only want $2000 (or thereabouts) and a no annual fee. Don’t want more as I would use it for hotels, car hire and potentially dodgy restaurants/shops etc Not concerned about fringe benefits or the interest rate generally as I would pay in full when the statement is sent. I would guess that the international fees are similar - depends how they mark up and mark down the components.
Anyone have some sound advice/directions on the matter? Thanks
Make sure that the credit limit covers the excess of the hire cars (this can be up to $5000-6000 depending on the car hire company). If the limit is less than the card limit, it can make hiring a car challenging as they won’t be able to do a pre-authorisation for this excess at the time of hire.
While excesses can be reduced when hiring using the car hire company offers, these are far more expensive than taking out travel insurance which usually has a car hire excess reduction in the coverage. If one relies on travel insurance to reduce the excess, the pre-authorisation at car hire will be the maximum excess payable. If one has an unfortunate incident when driving a hire car, the car company will take up to the whole of the pre-authorisation amount and then one will need to claim separately through their travel insurance.
This raises another point, it is best to have the credit limit as the car hire excess + any likely travel expenses. One doesn’t want to be in a position where there car is maxed out through a excess and not available for use with other travel purchases.
Also look at the fees to withdraw cash. We find that our bank’s eftpos debit visa card rates are slightly better than the GE/Latitude card. We use the eftpos card for cash withdrawals, and the GE/Latitude card 28 Degrees Card for anything else.
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Hi @rickieg,
I merged your post into this existing topic that may have a number of good links with ‘sound advice’.
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