Credit card travel reports notify credit card companies that you’ll be traveling and can prevent them from mistakenly classifying legitimate purchases as fraudulent activity, leading to declines at your destination.
To create a travel alert, notify your card issuer of your departure date and destination(s), including transit countries if applicable.
Set a Travel Alert
Notifying your credit card company that you’re traveling can ensure purchases you make while away aren’t flagged as possible fraud and declined. This is particularly important if the country you’re visiting has issued State Department Travel Advisories or warnings highlighting potential crime, unrest or other risks which might affect travelers.
Many major card issuers now recommend or even require you to set a travel alert before traveling abroad, thanks to advances in their fraud detection systems. Chase now automatically detects when travelers are abroad and allows you to create one directly through its website; additionally it offers some great travel cards without foreign transaction fees.
Set a Debit Alert
Credit card companies may decline charges that appear unusual or suspicious; by informing your card issuer of your travel plans, you can minimize the chance of an unnecessary decline.
With this alert, your card will notify you whenever a purchase exceeds a predefined threshold amount and merchant categories to include (department stores, entertainment, gas stations, groceries, household stores, personal care products, restaurants and travel). Furthermore, this enables real-time monitoring to see whether or not a transaction occurs in one of your preferred regions.
This feature can help prevent unexpected charges that appear at the end of each month and assist you with following a 30% credit-use guideline. Unlike other alerts, however, this one doesn’t require you to login to Online or Mobile Banking in order to activate it; simply visit Account Settings menu and set it there.
Set a Travel Notice
No matter if it is for romantic getaway or family fun at the beach, always inform your credit card issuer of when and where you plan on traveling so your charges do not get flagged as suspicious and declined.
Logging into your online account or mobile app is the quickest and simplest way to set a travel notice, where you’ll be able to input travel dates and destinations. Certain cards even allow for creating multiple destinations so you won’t need to update every trip’s information separately.
Due to advancements in fraud detection, some credit card issuers no longer encourage customers to set travel alerts; Chase no longer encourages this practice and has even taken steps to remove this feature from its website. But there are plenty of card companies offering this feature, so read carefully so you know how your card company handles travel notifications.
Check Your Credit Score
Before applying for travel cards, it’s a good idea to assess your credit score to ensure eligibility. Many premium cards require at least a certain minimum credit score to qualify, with factors like income and debt-to-income ratio having an effect on whether or not your application will be approved. Card issuers might also take your entire financial profile, including how you handle existing credit cards with them, into consideration. Some card issuers offer prequalification tools to give an estimate of your chances of approval without doing a hard inquiry on your report; Experian offers its CreditMatch tool which shows offers that might fit within your profile based on how your profile stands up – all without damaging your score or FICO(r)/VantageScore credit reports – check both for free with Experian.
