Joyce King-Husistein's cautionary tale follows: "I had made a long distance call in Grand Cayman wit

Nothing can rob you of don’t-worry-be-happy vacation bliss quicker than a credit card mishap that holds your cash flow hostage. If your response to a recent posting on the Cruise Critic Facebook page in which we asked readers if they ve ever had a credit card problem while cruising is any indication, there are a lot of you out there. And, yes, I ve been in the same boat, too.
From your posts, and with well over a decade’s cruising behind me, I’ve sussed out the three primary pitfalls that commonly occur once you’re actually on a cruise (and well after you’ve forked over the moolah for the voyage).
Joyce King-Husistein’s cautionary tale follows: “I had made a long distance call in Grand Cayman with my credit card, and the operator tried to use it, which Visa caught, thank goodness. I thought we might be washing dishes for years.” Writes Rosemary Smarrito Stinsman: “I booked an excursion at the Boatyard in Barbados and knew I should not have emailed my credit card number. Someone tried to purchase car rental france $700 worth of Virgin mobile equipment and American Express cancelled my card three days before the cruise.”
While you can t always avoid giving out your credit card number while on vacation, it s not a bad idea to keep records of your actual purchases and check your statement as soon as you re home to contest any misuse.
Horror No. 2: Blocked cards because you didn t alert your credit card providers that you ll be out of town. Indeed, in most cases, Facebook responders were in agreement that you should let the cards operations centers know you’ll be traveling.
Another reason to call: One of the ports on your itinerary may be on a fraud list. Amy Anderson recounts a nightmarish experience in Cozumel, where she figured she’d use her debit card to get cash out of an ATM. The request, plus others car rental france she made for incidental amounts (taxi, a round of cocktails), were all rejected. Her credit union, she reports, told her that it was “declining all charges in the country of Mexico due to fraud.” She was reduced to wandering the beach, looking for a generous-minded fellow passenger to loan her enough cash to pay her bar tab.
Horror No. 3: Reaching your credit limit. You know how you’re asked to hand over a credit or debit card for incidentals upon cruise check-in? Beware: Cruise car rental france lines tap into your credit limit (or actual balance) in a variety of oft-mysterious ways that aren’t readily publicized. And their method could, unknowingly, cause you to run short.
On Carnival, for instance, $50 is authorized at embark. Each day, the company seeks additional authorizations based on what you’re spending. At cruise’s car rental france end, it settles the charges and releases the pending charges it has placed on your credit card throughout the week. The danger zone? When the pending amounts are put back into your account car rental france is entirely up to your bank, not the cruise line. If your bank is slow when it comes to eliminating the pending spend – and essentially crediting the money back to you – you may not have access to what is left. Writes Chris Myers, “By the end of the trip there were thousands of dollars in charges sent to the credit card and we only had around $500 worth of charges.
The lesson I learned recently: I always assumed that a credit card’s expiration date –- at least as long as you made payments on time meant something. Apparently not to American Express and other companies that offer a fine-print car rental france caveat car rental france when you sign up for a credit card: They reserve the right at any time to cancel the card for any reason that suits. I’ll never forget being abruptly cut-off from my American Express card, the primary card I use for travel, with no warning and little to no information provided when I called customer service. The situation was ultimately resolved, but the resulting stress caused a big loss of confidence in American Express.
Let s end with this chilling tale from Tien-Lun Yao. One night onboard Norwegian Cruise Line, Yao was dining at Cagney’s Steakhouse when the maitre’ d came to his table to say there were problems with the credit card registered at embarkation. What could have happened? He asked on Facebook, car rental france “Could we complete our meal and wash the dishes or would we be released at the next port?”
@Mark, if your cash gets stolen car rental france all you can do is kiss it goodbye and file a police report. If you use a credit card, you can report the theft, block fraudulent use and (if you use a good credit card provider) get emergency cash!
Upon arriving at the guest relations desk, I was politely asked for an alternate form of payment. Not wanting to use my backup card, purchased the watch with that one, I persisted and the representative gladly placed a phone call to the CC company.
The first rep was very polite and apologetic but could not solve the problem because it was in the hands of fraud prevention. When connected with that office, I was brusquely advised that the computer does that and we don t even look at the accounts for notes .
Horror No. 2 Yes, DO call your credit card s security division for ALL the cards you plan to use on your vacation. American Express will tell you it is not necessary, car rental france but that they do appreciate the gesture. It is extremely embarassing to have your card shut down while in the busy Customer Service line, or be informed by the purser that your card does not work. It happend once to us, and lesson learned. It is one of the things we do and have on or check list a week before departure.
We had a stop in Florence and tried to use the Capitol One card at a jewelry store. We called 2 weeks before and told C.O. what our plans and itinerary are and were still confronted with a half hour on the phone. We repeated this 2 more times over the course of our cruise. The second thing I did upon returning home was to cancel that card and go with the credit union card for the next trip.
For an upcoming cruise we are taking in November, we are taking the Cruise Critic s Board advice and have checked off paying by cash on RCCL. We have set aside a debit-style card to use for this trip that avoids any of our other accounts. I have been told the cash option extends a small amount of on-board credit of around $200-$300 and when you reach that threshold, you need to visit the pursers desk to update your balance.
We also called our bank and told them we would be cruising and using one of our credit cards. They told us they would make a notation in our account, but that this was no guarantee someone sensing fraud would read the note. Now we give the ship one card and the use another for purchases. It has worked out so far. I d much rather have a purchase in port declined than a problem with the cruise line.
Excellent idea, Pat! I think that will be my plan as well. No worry, no hassle with travelers checks. My only advice is to use the PAPER checks, not the plastic reloadable card as you would run into holds placed on that as well and it is hard to get that resolved in a timely manner.
I was renting a car in Guadaloupe and had three good credit cards refused in their processing machine and finally the fourth credit card worked. It took over half an hour of mess and lucky I had four cards to try. Don t count on only one card. Also, I rented a car in Berlin with an MBNA card which is supposed to provide insurance and when I had an accident they got out of paying the claim on the small print . I ended up settleing car rental france with Budget for out of pocket of $5000USD! Always pay for insurance when out of your country.
On a Princess cruise in 2009 we found out half way through our cruise that the credit card I used to register car rental france with the cruise line and use as our primary card throughout the cruise was starting to get declined. Here we are in Tortola trying to buy my husband a coffee mug and my card is declined.
We beat feet back to the ship where I grabbed my cell phone and called my credit union. They informed me that there had been fraud on quite a few members accounts (someone hacked into the credit unions computer system) so they closed thousands of cards and reissued new cards with new pin numbers.
car rental france I flipped out. I told them that I was clear across the world from my the \new\ card they were sending me what was I to do now? They had no answer for me. They wouldn t release the old card. At the time I had only this one credit card. Thankfully my husband had brought his credit card, but his limit at the time was fairly low (we wanted it that way) and we were only half way through the trip.
To make matters worse, Princess had a difficult time getting my account re-set up. I had to close out my account earlier than normal and then apply a new credit card to the shipboard car rental france account. While it sounds simple, it caused Princess (and me) an endless amount of headache. My one credit card with the high limit was dead in the water.
I now have TWO credit cards and my husband s limit has been raised. car rental france We always notify our credit union and credit card companies when we re traveling, but that doesn t always give you the assurance that your card will be usable while away from home.
YOU MISSED ONE HORROR. We were on Carnival and had booked 6 rooms that included our entire party. Each room, however was on a different credit card provided by the occupants. But one room did not have a credit card associated with it. We checked our statement on the day of disembarkation and it was correct AND we kept the copy they gave us. Then when we got home we found that they had charged to gratuities of that one room to OUR credit card after we had left the ship!!! W told them that it was incorrect and they said, You should have checked it before you left the ship. We told them that we HAD and the charge was not there and we had the copy to prove it. They refused to talk to us about it. So I had the credit card company car rental france reverse the charge!!! But I fought with Carnival for two weeks before I took that action and they never did admit they were wrong and after we stopped the payment car rental france they never fought car rental france with