Citibank has a very bad habit of freezing cards for the smallest reason. For a while, they were constantly putting holds on my card when I made any internet purchases, even from Amazon.com which I have been buying from for 10 years. Then they did it with a $30 purchase from my grocery store, and I've been charging from that store for about 20 years. All of this with the same card from Citi. I don't know why they were doing it, I've always paid my bills in full every month and would never even consider having a balance. When I called them, they told me it was for my protection, which is bull, it's for their protection and I told them so. I, (and every other credit card user) am protected by law. I read them the riot act and told them that if they ever did it again, I would cancel the card. It hasn't happened now in about two years. I figured they wouldn't care since they don't make any extra money on me since I never carry a balance but I guess they did and it stopped.

I try to use BILL PAY from my banks to pay my bills before I leave home.

So far I haven't had any problems using internet shops overseas. Most of the computers will have IE. You can switch off a foreign language to your own language. If you can't do the change yourself ask the shop attendant to do it for you before you start.

I always clear the cookies and history trail.

For the last 2 years I have been using a flash drive with Firefox on it (free portable app.) This Firefox matches my home computer. When I plug it in I have the same favorites, addresses, notes etc.that I have on my home computer. It is password protected. If I have to access a secure site I first type my PW onto Notepad (free download) and then cut & paste to the PW blank.

So far, so good! The flash drive makes it easy to access my favorite sites and email providers.

(I do check to see if anyone can see what I am doing, usually I try to get a seat with a wall behind me!)

My credit cards are paid in full automatically every month from my checking account. I have 60 days from the day they were sent to review every statement. And I review them carefully after I return home.

I do the same as Way North. It's called "AutoPay" and you can select to have the full balance on yur credit card statement taken out of your checking account on the payment due date each month.