Paying online with a Canadian credit card WHILE in Italy

Can you have the verification code sent to your email?

Everything you described is my daily experience living in Italy with an Italian phone number and only Canadian credit cards. You are spot on. Canadian banks are set up so they cannot dial any numbers outside the North American +1 country code. For a short trip, I suggest you just let Rogers, Telus, Bell or whoever your carrier is soak you for the daily roaming rate to avoid difficulties. If you want to be more frugal, you could get an Italian eSIM (cheap like borscht) and switch back to your Canadian SIM only when you need to receive a 2FA validation code. You'll pay the daily roaming rate only for the days you do that. Or, you could use your debit card which doesn't require 2FA for purchases if you aren't set on using credit and its fraud protections.

No good answer, sorry, but you clearly identified the issue. It's a pain.

The only time I have had the secondary authorization is when accessing the account. That is fairly common but I have never encountered the secondary code when using the card. Is that a characteristic of Canadian credit cards? That would be difficult.

That's one of the flaws in the advice to use a local sim - banks can't contact you to authorise payments.

Solutions?

• Do you need to buy online? Buy tickets in person.

• Get a dual SIM phone.

• Put your Canadian SIM back in when you expect to be contacted by the bank.

I would suggest either buying a cheap phone to use with your Italian number or possibly you have an older phone already that you could put the Italian SIM card into. Currently I’m in the UK and use an older iPhone with a UK sim and keep my Canadian iPhone on airplane mode and only use wifi. Depending on how much you are spending in one transaction it is unlikely the credit card company will send you a verification code. One other suggestion is connecting to wifi when you know the verification code is likely to be sent, that has worked for me as well. Have a great trip.

I believe the OP may be concerned about a few things that need not be a problem.

First, with most modern phones, using a local data eSIM does not render your home (Canadian) SIM inactive. Rather, you'll set the local eSIM as primary for data, setting data roaming off for your home SIM. But texts and calls can still come through on your home SIM. And so long as you choose a data-only local eSIM, all will be good. Actually, even if your local eSIM is connected to an Italian phone number, I believe that texts to your Canadian number will still come through, though my Europe local SIM experience is limited primarily to the data-only variety.

I've traveled extensively in Europe and never have had a problem with verification texts. They've come through just fine. Just remember to keep your home SIM in your phone and keep it active for incoming texts.

ETA: my discussion assumes that the OP has a modern phone, which consequently implies multi-SIM capability.

Possible solution for the OP

This may be more of a Canadian option.

Has anyone used aloSIM (powered by Affinity Click)? It says it's a Canadian solution offering 10G for $37 Cdn for "Europe" in which they are including the UK.

I am travelling to the UK for 3 weeks with a short jaunt to Italy. We leave in just over two weeks. John's reply made sense and got me searching for options. I need a data only eSIM for my daughter and myself. I need to keep my phone number because I have a Canadian credit card and they text me for 2FA not for everything but for surprisingly low amounts online. My daughter probably would like texting but I think the kids mostly text on Instagram or other. My bank doesn't email to free email-based addresses - I have been on hotmail for nearly 30 years and know I should switch but it would be very complicated. Hotspotting would be nice but we could live without it. We are spending half our time with a friend and half travelling around. We both have newer iPhones. I don't have Apple Pay set up but might do so. We will be using Oyster cards which we have. I have organized an 11-16 Oyster zip for my daughter which we are picking up at Heathrow on arrival, fingers crossed!

I think all phones in Canada are now unlocked but the international packages are ridiculous at $16/ day. I think the cap is $300 but it may be for each billing cycle which doubles the cost for each of us.

Thanks!

Has anyone used aloSIM (powered by Affinity Click)? It says it's a Canadian solution offering 10G for $37 Cdn for "Europe" in which they are including the UK.

You've basically suggested exactly what I suggested one post earlier, with the exception that you listed a single eSIM provider (aloSIM) that other posts on the website suggest may not be very reliable.

Both Airalo and Nomad are reputable, reliable providers of data-only eSIMs.