Unable to pay cruise bill?

[kevinsgirl88]

when i cruise i always have a cash account cause i dont have a cc! and everyday when im onboard i pay my bill at the end of the day so i know how much i have left! it turned out well cause i always had money left over :o

[Zotz64]

I travel for business a lot. I always use my AMEX card so they know what my normal month looks like. However, when I have to travel internationally I always call and let them know the dates and countries I will be in. My AMEX bill generally runs between $3,000 and $4,000 a month but I always pay it in full. I know that you can ask AMEX to put a test charge on your account for what you expect to charge on your trip and they can verify that it will be accepted. When I travel internationally I generally ask them to test charge about $10,000. The agents always run a test charge of $15,000 to $20,000 to make sure I don't get surprised.

 

Having said that, please be advised that I have had personal experience with another credit card company doing what I consider to be an extremely questionable and vile thing. I was going to travel to China and I decided to use a Visa card (company name withheld to prevent possible litigation). I called them two weeks before I left to verify that I had enough credit and to tell them that I expected to charge about $10,000 in China. All was well as the account had a credit limit of $25,000 and a current balance of $2,700.

 

I don't know what made me call them and check again the day before I left but boy, was it a good thing I did. Suddenly I found that I was a "high risk" cardholder and my credit limit had been reduced to $8,500. During the course of the rather heated discussion that followed this little bit of information I was told that of course they would have honored any charges but I would have had to pay their exorbitant over-the-limit fees as well as having my card interest rate jacked up to 29.99%!

 

The result of that little attempt to screw me was that I closed all my accounts with them. I think I've spent over $100,000 on my AMEX since then so they have lost a lot of money.

 

I agree about having a backup card or cards available. I have my business BoA Visa, a Visa from my Credit Union, and a business Discover card as a backup when I travel.

[reeran]

We always like to use AMEX for the points but since itis a joint account we usually bring a Visa back up too.

[Desert Cruizers]

reeran, since no further charges were made on this card, it made me wonder, at the time the person booked their flight, also using Diners/MC, and giving out the numbers, the agent on the other end transposed a # = DH card. Not sure of the odds on that happening. Even though we use Am Exp as our primary cruise card, we bring a back up and inform both companies where we will be and the dates.

[reeran]

I have also seen people who forget to tell thier CC company they are traveling outside the country. They try to use thier card and a fraud notice is triggered and the card is declined. Last year in Italy, I gave a restaurant a card I had not done that with, it looked like another card, and it was declined for that reason even with a zero balance. I realized my mistake and gave them the correct card. Lesson is let your CC company know where you are going so that you do not get declined, even with an available credit line.

 

 

Good Point! I called mine in from the airport many times to let them know I'm leaving...LOL