When booking a foreign airline reservation online let Captial One know first ...

I usually receive an email or text asking if I made the purchase, I say yes and it goes through. But I know to look for the message to ensure my purchase is made.

When booking, or paying for, anything on a foreign website with a cc, it's always a good idea to let your cc provider know before you do it.

That's kind of funny of Cap One to say to you because, while I ALWAYS call in a notification before I travel, Cap One has a recorded message now that says you don't have to call in your travel. I therefore gave up for this current trip I'm on to Egypt but I haven't tried to use the card yet as it's not my primary card for this trip.

It's also funny because I often get declined by Cap One when making purchases of train tickets, foreign air tickets etc. Sometimes I'm able to clear it up by responding to a text or email. Sometimes not and I have to call and talk to them. It's always a hassle. When we're booking one of our multi-component trips, we have a few credit cards arrayed out on the table in front of us.

Same thing happened to us when booking Norwegian flights last year. Two credit cards got declined before I thought about it and used a debit card. Bank of America called/emailed shortly to confirm whether we were indeed trying to purchase airline tickets, while Amex automatically canceled the card and sent a new one.

I've been pleased with Cap One, but over time have been told conflicting info about whether it is advisable or necessary to call prior to travel or purchasing ( and with other CCs as well ). I've decided to call each time for my own sake. They have asked for dates of travel or dates of purchase and a rough dollar estimate, and perhaps they're humoring me, but we do it anyway. On two occasions when I had trouble making train tickets, the Cap One agent made the 3 way call and it was worked out quickly. I was impressed.

My CapOne Visa Swiss web purchase of an entry fee purchase executed mid-November without a glitch. The Swiss website denominated the purchase in Euros. I did not do a foreign transaction pre-notification. No problem.

Interesting enough, I got a fraud unit call from my Master Card last night. My account was apparently used to attempt a $600 WalMart purchase that Master Card declined and a $300 Target purchase that Master Card considered suspect and had called to verify. We never shop at WalMart and rarely shop at Target. Apparently Master Card's fraud detection analytics flagged the two attempts as suspicious. MC locked the card and is sending replacements.

One benefit of Capital One is my wife and I have separate cards with independent account numbers but a single statement. If one card is compromised and locked, the other card would still work. That feature is handy when traveling away from home.

I have a Capital One Visa card. I called them in March to tell them about my upcoming trip to Paris and they said it's no longer necessary to call and tell them about foreign travel. I'll still do it for each foreign and domestic trip, though. Better that way than if they freeze my card when I'm out of town because of a legitimate purchase!

Since I got my new Cap One card with the chip, I haven't had any problems with online travel. I've paid for trains, planes, hotels, and a rental car in the past 2-3 months for my upcoming trip to Italy. Before I started, I tried to do a travel notification and was advised that it's no longer necessary, "but they'd put a note on my account anyway."

By the bye, I was able to use my Discover card to pay for my Rome hotel. If the site accepts Diners I always give it a shot. It seems that more and more merchants are accepting Discover in Europe and so far, Discover is maintaining its "no foreign fee" policy.

Thanks to everyone who has responded to my post. I'm glad to hear that I'm not alone in dealing an ever changing landscape of credit card practices and policies. For the my upcoming travels, and now that my airline ticketing is completed (SAS, Norwegian & BA), I'll try the following plan when traveling internationally: Capital One for in-person POS transactions and AmEx for online transactions. Fingers crossed.

This practice is not new. I've dealt with it for the nearly 16 years I've lived overseas. I have always been thankful that my credit card company is so vigilant. Has it caused me stress? Yes. Would it have caused me more stress had the transactions been fraudulent? Yes.

Recently dealt with this new CapitalOne policy about no trip notifications accepted (note that for the bank cards an online travel notification is still accepted).

So went to Mexico last month with my CapOne card without making a trip notification and used it about 20 times without an issue. Nothing was declined (although curiously I got a email notification questioning the validity of my home monthly phone bill charge!). 9 days after returning there was a charge in Cancun that was phony so the card was canceled. I questioned the (not particularly fluent in English Filipina) on the phone about why this charge was questioned, and she said "Because it was in Mexico!" She didn't speak English well enough for me to get a lot of good info but it sounds like it was challenged because it was an online transaction.

Moral of the story: Since CapOne no longer accepts foreign trip notifications, make sure the first transaction is a chip transaction to establish the locality of the card.

Interesting Tom. It looks like CapOne now requires or suggests the reverse of what I've always done: a trip notification, but no notice as to a foreign online airline purchase.