I have been trying to attain tickets for a Vatican Museums tour tonight, using the Vatican's web site. Each time I input my info I have gotten a message saying the transaction did not go through, to either retry or contact merchant. So very frustrating. What COULD be wrong? I called my bank, and they say it must be at the seller's end, not mine, that they see no transaction via my credit card? Anyone ever dealt with this before? It says tickets are available for Thursday, December 28, at 9 a.m., when I tried booking for. All my information was correct. I proofread several times. I wonder whether this difficulty is a sign that God wants us to go on the more expensive Pristine Sistine Tour, since this will be a once-in-a-lifetime visit for my hubby? It's my second visit. Hubby thought the regular tour would be just fine and save money, but since my transaction won't go through (I've tried 5 times), I DO wonder. LOL!
Posted by
Dublin, Ireland
45 posts
It may have something to do with an extra level
of security on credit cards. See this previous post.
Posted by
Pa and Italy
4152 posts
Call your credit card and have them enact the "verified by visa" protocol. This is a third level of protection that most companies are using now. It only takes a minute and will save you stress when booking other tickets.
donna
Posted by
Chicago, IL
21 posts
I had the same issue when trying to book our train tickets through trainline.eu. It was an issue with another level of security. The folks at Trainline were able to let me bypass it, but I had to make an account. Not sure you will have that option with the Vatican. I also had an issue when trying to buy tickets to see the David (using Firefox or Chrome would work, but not Safari). Hope you are able to work it out!
Posted by
Northamptonshire, England
34185 posts
No it is not God speaking.
Try a different card. This time call the bank and tell them that you will be making the transaction Before you go to the website. Telling them afterwards is no good.
Verified by Visa a program which when activated remains with the card. You may have a popup which requires a password. Do you have popups disabled (good idea)? Look for the popup blocked icon on your browser when you get to that stage and you can unblock for that website or just once for the transaction.
Vatican museums has a history of making things difficult for US cards. It isn't just you.
Posted by
Ontario, Canada
4657 posts
I am not going to get into any intervention or Vatican transactions in particular; but for all its advancements, US bank and credit cards seem to not be well suited for international functionality. I have had Verified by Visa for years and had no problems with my bookings for Spain, where as US cards gave similar experiences as you. However, even Verified by Visa can have less than stellar reactions on some websites. A Canadian acquaintance had her Verified by Visa rejected by AMEX seems to work more frequently.
So all that to say, you may have to persist a few more times even with VbyV. As mentioned, it is for the life of the card - and even transfers over when a new card is provided to replace an expired one.
The first time you use it, you will be asked to create a password and then future transactions will/may require you to complete that password in order to move on to the next level of transaction completion. If you have popups 'off' it will never complete.
You might consider going to the Verified by Visa website and create your password so that the first activation is done there.
Also, your bank can do nothing about these international transaction issues. They are not the ones blocking it and even calling the credit card company will do nothing. It is all linked to the process of the vendor's payment system.
The other thing that sometimes happens is that payment systems don't work as well on certain browsers, so the advice is to try another computer, use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, update your Internet Explorer......it really seems to all be how your starts are aligned, or in your case what you perceive to be a sign from a higher being....but I think it is really just the second level of security that isn't showing up well on your system.
Posted by
Ontario, Canada
4657 posts
So, you didn't read the part that YOU have to create your password on a Verified by Visa popup - or on their website?