Traveling Domestically

[staticvoidmain]

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@sammyfire2001 wrote:

I'm wondering if I need to tell my card companes if I'm traveling domestically within the US.    I have cards with Discover, Amex (2), Barclays and Penfed.   Anyone have any idea?

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This depends on the bank. I can say for certain that Amex does not need to be notified. Barclays used to, but have since improved their fraud detection and you do not need to anymore as far as I know. Other banks (Chase comes to mind) wants to be notified, or risk having your card unusable (happened to my mom). That said, this is usually done for international travel as it is generally harder to resolve this abroad. It wouldn't hurt either asking the bank, so you know what to do in the future. My general rule is I look at their web portal, if there is a facility to do this, then I'd just do it.

[iced]

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@sammyfire2001 wrote:

I'm wondering if I need to tell my card companes if I'm traveling domestically within the US.    I have cards with Discover, Amex (2), Barclays and Penfed.   Anyone have any idea?

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This is wholly dependent on your travel habits as the modern systems are pretty good about baselining your spending habits.

If you're a homebody who never wanders more than 50 miles from your home ZIP, the fraud detection might raise some alarms seeing your cards suddenly being used in another part of the country. If you travel every month, the system learns your habits and expects to see you move.

I don't even report international travel anymore because my banks have come to expect to see international transactions with some regularity. They do, however, flag a fraud if my card is so much as used to pay for gas at a pump down the street because I never buy gas.

[wasCB14]

My experience has been that it doesn't take much for Discover to decline a transaction as suspicious.

And as others have said, Amex will allow a lot in the way of large/unusual/away-from-home spend without advance notice.

[longtimelurker]

And, as I have related here before, reporting sometimes doesn't work.  One time my daughter went to the UK, she informed Capital One of her travel and provided UK cell contact information.    When she tried to check in, her card was declined, and she later discovered that Cap One had called her US cell for confirmation of the charge.   As she had left this at home....... (this was in the days pre 4G when most VZ phones were CDMA only)   We were not impressed.

[mongstradamus]

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@longtimelurker wrote:

And, as I have related here before, reporting sometimes doesn't work.  One time my daughter went to the UK, she informed Capital One of her travel and provided UK cell contact information.    When she tried to check in, her card was declined, and she later discovered that Cap One had called her US cell for confirmation of the charge.   As she had left this at home....... (this was in the days pre 4G when most VZ phones were CDMA only)   We were not impressed.

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I had a somewhat similar experience when i was trying to buy a ticket from Bangkok to Chiang Mai , it got declined even though i called and told them the exact cities i would be in, not just the country. 

Chase on the other hand i didn’t have many issues using overseas. 

[Anonymous]

As others have mentioned, it all depends on your activity. If you never travel, then all of a sudden want to charge large amounts 3 states away or further. It could raise an eyebrow. It's much easier and less of a hassle to be proactive and alert the CCC you'll be using before hand, than it is to have to call them and sort it out after the card has been declined. 

[Anonymous]

For whatever reason, Discover cuts off my wife’s card almost every time we travel. The worst was being at a restaurant late at night in Niagara Falls — nowhere near an ATM and with no other card on us.

And no matter how many times it happens, we still forget to call in advance.

No problems with any other card.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
For whatever reason, Discover cuts off my wife’s card almost every time we travel. The worst was being at a restaurant late at night in Niagara Falls — nowhere near an ATM and with no other card on us.

And no matter how many times it happens, we still forget to call in advance.

No problems with any other card.

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The Boy Scout Motto comes to mind: "Always Be Prepared" which in lay person's terms is, carry more than one card and cash for the "life happens" ...! Because, life does happen!