Credit Card Requirements for Flights From Europe?

If you don't want to be "surprised at the last minute", be sure to have all your credit cards with you. Whether or not credit card verification will occur again is irrelevant. It may, it may not. Have the cards with you.

While I have not experienced this issue with air travel , it is not uncommon on rail . As an example , DB ( German Railways ) requires that you verify an online e-ticket with the credit card used for purchase ( even if cancelled or otherwise invalid ) with the train's conductor . I also recall several instances where I was asked to produce the card used for purchase , when exchanging an emailed voucher for a physical ticket to a museum or similar venue . ( I seem to recall that was required when picking up pre booked tickets for The Alhambra ) The requirement is somewhat hit or miss , so I make sure I have any cards used before departure safely stashed in my underclothes belt for the duration of my trip .

Looks like we were posting simultaneously ; -- )

Many airlines that operate flights within Europe state somewhere on their web site during the purchase process that you MUST have the credit card used to purchase the ticket with you when you check in. Picking up train tickets that you purchased online require the purchasing card to be used at the kiosk to claim them. Leaving a country or only traveling within a single country does not matter. So yea, it is continent wide and not restricted to any specific country. Will you always be asked for the card? Your own experience shows it is not always required. Be safe, take the card.

Well, in this case it will be difficult to show the card. CITI Bank has switched from supporting their American Airlines Signature VISA, canceling all of those cards and replacing them with MasterCard branded replacements. With different numbers and accounts. I guess I have more research to do...

it will be difficult to show the card. CITI Bank has switched from supporting their American Airlines Signature VISA, canceling all of those cards and replacing them with MasterCard

josynthia, Even if the card is cancelled or out of date, I would guess you still have it in your possession. That is the card they wish to see.
DB (German Railways) specifically say they wish to see the card used to buy the ticket, even if it is no longer valid.
If you pre-print your boarding card before you get to the airport, it is not an issue. Once you have your boarding "card" printed out (or on your phone), all you need is your passport for ID.

If you still have the old , cancelled card , that will do . One other suggestion - Bring a copy of your card statement that shows the old number and the transaction in question , that might work as a substitute if the issue arises

In many cases when you buy tickets online (airline, train, theatre, etc.), there is fine print that you may be required to show the credit card used to purchase the tickets. If a company has this requirement and your card is lost or stolen, then contact the company in advance to let them know the situation and find out what to do.

I have (somewhat randomly ... at least I haven't detected a pattern) been required to produce my card for flights. When one of my cards was changed from a Visa to MasterCard last year, I simply brought the old invalid card along, just in case I was asked.

I suspect that this is really more about preventing fraud than "security". For example, last month I bought tickets to Hamilton in London for 2018. To prevent scalping, they are not issuing paper tickets and are requiring customers to bring their credit card for entry.

Thank you all for your helpful comments. Fortunately I haven't yet destroyed the old card, so maybe for once, procrastination works in my favor. I hope the old card will suffice, but will scrounge around for the old invoice and pack it away as well. I also sent an inquiry to British Airways to get their take on it since tickets were booked through American. I don't recollect producing a credit card in this context when traveling in US/Latin America, and certainly not on previous trips to Europe. I assumed that it was a security measure instituted by the Spanish government.

Lesson learned.

Lesson learned.

I have never encountered that with airlines, but I have never used Spanish airlines, either. It's not the case with budget carriers from other countries, or with US-based carriers.

I took Vueling two times in last 12 months and I booked online with credit card they only wanted passport

This is standard practice all around the world, and has been for some years. They may not always require the card used for the purchase actually be shown, but they might, and you need to be ready. And not just for airlines (although I think that's the case that can be most problematic). Best practice is to keep a record of which credit card you used for any pre-trip purchase, and have that card with you when you go to use whatever you paid for. I make this a routine part of my travel planning: every time I book a flight, rent a car, reserve a hotel room, etc., I record the booking reference number/confirmation code and the credit card used for it, and that goes in my trip planing paperwork - religiously. That's always at hand on paper and in PDF format on my iPad as I travel. Once you get in the habit it's easy.

Good planning, David! I just started using Tripit, which extracts information from emailed confirmation statements, so I will add a note for the last 4 digits of the credit card.

I must be special but I've never been asked to show my credit card by a conductor on DB or any rail service. Just the ticket. Nor by any airline.

If printing from a machine, yes, the credit card is my ID.

However, when using my credit card in some retailers I have been asked for some form of ID to prove it is me.

This is standard practice all around the world, and has been for some years.

??? Absolutely not standard practice and entirely unexpected unless specifically warned about in advance as it is with British rail kiosks and German rain tickets (they stick it into a handheld device that beeps yes for a match).

Yes, we experienced this.

We were flying on Delta with a legs (not on Delta) that would go to Morocco and back. A Delta supervisor warned us that the original card used would be needed or we would be denied boarding. She warned that even epeople with the highest level of air miles would be turned away IF they did not have the original credit card when checking in. When I inquired as to WHY, it is apparently because of the high fraud activity (at least at the time) with transactions to do with Morocco. Applied my logic of: Yes, but this will be some 9 or more months later when I fly, so any fraud would have been detected long before the flight (not to argue, just to understand). No exceptions whatsoever.

She went on to warn that since it is normal to have credit card issuers send new credit cards more often these days, to be sure to either keep the original card or to go to the airport sometime when convenient to show a airline rep the card (so they could make a note in the ticket record). So, we drove out to the airport and showed the card and had said note made. BUT..........it gets even better:

You know how flights reservations made several months out can (and do change)............well, due to rerouting and the such, we wound up with a new ticket number (and, no, the original note made when we presented the card in person months earlier did not transfer). Luckily my back-up plan worked: When we were issued a new credit card, I took the old card, wrote VOID across both sides with a magic marker and put it inside my passport. Thank goodness I did that, because YES, we had to show the card in order to board our original plane (which was going to Barcelona).

The airline told us there are a few countries: Morocco and a few other countries in Africa (I can't recall which) and maybe it was Portugal ( really do not remember) for which they had to follow this very strict procedure due to fraud issues.

So, good idea if you have used a card to charge airfare and if your issuer sends a new card with a different number, stick the old one with your passport. Better to be prepared.

We've traveled a lot and this was the first (and only) time out of gobs and gobs and gobs of trip that we ever ran into this. I am soooo thankful the Delta supervisor warned me (and I would not have even had the chance to talk w/ her, but a problem arose re: one of the connections (that's another weird story in and of itself...I booked the fare in/out of Morocco with Delta as part of our entire series of tickets, but they were asking to refund that p portion of the trip, so we could book directly with Air Moroc, along with all sorts of apologies.....reason: because if those legs got changed, Delta might not know about it right away to warn us...okay, reasonable) so Delta reached out to us and she happened to mention the credit card warning as an aside.

I am really trying to make sense out of this requirement to show the exact credit card used to purchase a ticket in order to use the ticket. And I'm not getting there.

The part about having to use the purchase credit card to retrieve (train, bus, opera) tickets at a kiosk does make some sense. It provides an additional layer of identification for tickets that don't require ID to use in most cases. The card info is compared to what was entered at the time of purchase and if matched is good. This should mean the card was not stolen and the person collecting the ticket is the original purchaser.

But showing the card before getting on a plane just does not make any sense to me. The airlines state it is to "reduce fraud". OK, on last minute purchases that might be true. But if you bought the ticket 3, 6, 9 months ago, anything that could be considered "fraud" would have long ago shaken out and hopefully the ticket would have been cancelled by then. If the original card is no longer valid because it has been replaced for any reason, what does that prove other than you have the physical card? One of the main reasons a card is replaced is "fraud"! What if someone bought the ticket for you? It is not uncommon for a young adult to have their plane tickets purchased for them, like for a graduation present, and then they don't have the card because it is not theirs. There is no fraud here.

Unfortunately, more and more airlines require this. Delta is the only US based airline I know of that requires it so far but from reading I did on this topic it appears they will not be the only one.

I am really trying to make sense out of this requirement to show the exact credit card used to purchase a ticket in order to use the ticket. And I'm not getting there.

That's because there is no sense in it.