No Credit Card?

[Hlitner]

In todays credit world and travel world cash and debt cards do not cut it.

They can be compromise , stolen , hacked ( Target to Neiman Marcus) CAR rental and hotels can put hunderds in not thousands of your money on a up to 30 day hold.. Too you have really no insurance on fraud charges...thiefs can steal you blind in before you ever know it.....NO DEBT or CHECK card.

 

This is the same with Cruise lines you could find your entire account locked up and take weeks to a month to get it released

A car company will lock $500 for a days rental and many without a card will not rent to you at all.

 

To travel international or anywhere... You need a passport and a credit card that is good god for a min of $5000, with $10,000 being better. Or don't lave in a trip.....its that important If you can afford a I-pod gizmo then you should have a credit card

 

Personally I like and use a card with a $30,000 limit. keep it a zero balance but have it like an insurance. Second spending cash which earns you nothing in travel rewards, hotel airline, cash back, is , well foolish when the same money could be giving you a return.

 

Also the credit card is insurance, you get 10,000 pp travel insurance when you use your card to pay. Buy something or get ripped off....your only libel for $50. So product insurance. Need to charge in a foreign currency...many cards have no fee for that and you get it for the bankers million unit rate.

 

While this might work fine in Hawaii it does not "cut it" in many parts of the world where credit cards are not accepted at many restaurants and other places. As frequent international travelers (and we are talking about 6+ months a year) we would never rely on a single credit card or a single debit card. These days you need both and you need back-ups for both. Big credit limits are great (especially for rental cars) but are meaningless if your card is compromised and gets "cut off" by the credit card security folks. This can even happen for reasons not related to your own use. We are currently living in Puerto Vallarta (our winter home) and a good friend (here) just got notified that one of his major credit cards has been reissued and mailed to his US home (which does him no good down here) because of the Target fiasco. He had to call Visa Security and darn near beg them to keep his old card active for another month (they wanted to cut it off immediately).

 

While we agree about using credit cards (DW and I carry 5 different major credit cards between us) they are not a good option when you need cash. Here in PV, more then half the 40+ restaurants we frequent do not accept credit cards. And it is the same in Italy (and other parts of Europe) where some restaurants do not want plastic and even some B&Bs want cash. And then there is the other issue where US issued magnetic strip cards are not even accepted in more and more places and getting a Chip/PIN EMV card is still difficult in the US.

 

Bottom line is that the savvy traveler is always armed with back-up financial sources.

Hank

[ducklite]

This is where carrying an AmEx is beneficial. They will overnight to pretty much anywhere in the world. When we travel we take the AmEx as well as a M/C and a Visa (issued by different banks), both with a full $30K of open credit lines. One of us carries one card and the other carries the other. We like to have as much paid in advance as possible, use cash for meals, purchases, admissions, etc. and credit cards for hotels, car rentals, and major purchases.

 

PS--An iPod can be had for well under $100, so that statement is irrelevant.

 

Autocorrect responsible for most typos...

Edited February 2, 2014 by ducklite