Hi, my trip report will follow. While in Latvia my credit card stopped being accepted. There I was at 2 AM trying to book an airline ticket on the internet with my backup card 1 mile away at the hotel.

Yes I called the credit card company prior to departure. Just now on the phone they said there was a series of strange charges so they put a security block on the card.

My other card worked fine and I did not call to notify the company of my travels prior to departure.

Anyone have a suggestion to prevent this from occuring in the future?

I think it can always happen. But did you call them immediately when you had the problem? I had a similar incident in London when my card was refused and when I called it was because I had made an "unauthorized payment" of $20,000 on the account before I left for the trip. I did it as there was a matching charge coming which had not yet gone through. They froze my card because they owed me $20,000????? But meanwhile this happened at about 10 AM on New Year's Day -- about 5 AM back home -- yet a collect call to their service number went right through and I got an immediate release.

I think all you can do is continue to call and give your itinerary and hope for the best. You also need to make sure you have a 24 hour a day number for them that can be reached from overseas for immediate response to a potential problem. But if the company repeats putting a hold on the card AFTER they've been given your itinerary, I'd look for a new credit card company.

".. I had made an "unauthorized payment" of $20,000 on the account.."

For some reason not clear to me, banks do not allow a 'pre-payment' that exceeds the balance or the credit line limit.

I guess that was the problem, Travelnut. When I made a business charge for $20,000 (odd) on my card, I sent a check for the same amount the next day to the credit card company, so that it would not hinder my spending limit in Europe. They considered that payment "unauthorized". It seemed very logical to me. Obviously not to them.

It's well documented here (and elsewhere) that calling the card company ahead will not prevent your card to be blocked. They still run all their anti-fraud programs to monitor the charges.

There's no study (scientific or otherwise) to show whether calling makes a difference or not. My personal gut feeling is that it does not.

On a similar note, I called BankofAmerica with our 12 week itinerary on both our ATM cards. But after 30 days both cards were blocked. When I called, one representative told me that the override for travel only lasts 30 days, but he couldn't tell me why we weren't told that when we gave a 12 week itinerary. Later another rep insisted that wasn't true, that we must have never called or they wouldn't have blocked it, but the blocking is done for our protection. When I asked why they had then allowed something like 8 withdrawals between the two cards over a 30 day period before blocking it -- if we hadn't called-- he couldn't give me an answer.

For myself, I never call any card company ahead. Waste of time, in my opinion. If the card gets blocked, then I call collect to get it unblocked.

Credit card companies are run by greedy cretins. Their own people steal from them, bank employees steal from them, post office employees take the cards and steal from them and they still don't have a clue. They do not use profiling and rely on blanket procedures which often don't work.

As I told them earlier this year; I sent them letters telling them I would be in Thailand as the previous year and they still stopped my cards. But if I had lost my cards on the way to the airport and someone in France (where I now live) had found them and drew the maximum out every day they would have happily allowed that.

While I was in Delft last May, my credit card was eaten by the ATM. It was my first attempt at withdrawing cash on this trip. I had reported to my bank that I would be using the card in Europe. Luckily I had brought cash and another credit card. My sister's ATM card worked every time. Our bank had not made the notation about out of country use.

That happened to me when we were in Barcelona. I called prior to leaving, but still when we were in BCN and shopping, they froze the card. I called the number and authorized the transactions they questioned. Card was unfrozen and usable again.

My other credit card, I didn't have any problems.