Notification of Overseas Travel for Citibank cards - Dumbest Thing I've Read.

[theblank]

Amazing!!!!
You haven't addressed a single point I made.

I recommend you forget about using ATM's, and get some Travellers Cheques instead. That will be much easier to handle.

 

[Legoman]

Do Traveller's cheques still exist?

 

[romney]

I have been travelling for over seven months now, through Europe (mostly the Balkans) Middle East and now in India, and our go-to cards are both Citibank debit and credit cards. We did let Citibank know before we left that we were travelling, but couldn’t tell them where because we are making it up as we go. Neither card has been blocked anywhere. The only issue we have had was the debit card wouldn’t work in Bulgaria. Had to resort to backup card there.

 

[Renato1]

I recommend you forget about using ATM's, and get some Travellers Cheques instead. That will be much easier to handle.

Why? I messaged Citibank before I left that I didn't have a working phone, they said they had noted my travel details and that my card would work - and it has.

My solution seems simpler than anything you've suggested.
Regards,
Renato

 

[Renato1]

Well, quite frankly, this wouldn't be a worthless piece of advice actually. I believe you said you were with Virgin Mobile? So was I. I changed when it became too obvious that Virgin doesn't want pre-paid customers and was progressively making their offerings less + less competitive to hopefully either get them to convert to contract or shed them altogether. I chose the later option and have moved to Aldimobile instead. I have a friend who is a 737 captain for VAH who made the same switch just before me who went with Amaysim instead.

Virgin mobile buy bandwidth from Optus network and do not offer global roaming for pre-paid customers. Their focus is on contract customers. You're getting a pre-paid service from a provider who isn't really interested in you and don't want your business quite frankly. Amaysim + Aldimobile are primarily focused on pre-paid customers and also offer contract services as an aferthought add-on. You get far better service from a company who is focused on the kind of product you want to buy.

For my friend who is a 737 captain, he needed global roaming support more critically, so he went with Amaysim who had at that time, straight out of the box global roaming support on pre-piad plan. No fuss, no worries, he can get bank SMS codes from anywhere, anytime, wherever his work takes him. On the downside, is the fact that Amaysim also buys bandwidth from Optus, so his coverage and call quality is the same as it was with Virgin Mobile, ie. 5h!t.

I on the other hand am not a 737 captain and do not regularly find myself stuck in places like Bali under an erupting volcano, so I value call quality + coverage in Australia more than I do global roaming support. I then went for Aldimobile instead who buy bandwidth from Telstra wholesale. The call quality, reliability and consistency as well as the coverage area is night/day compared to Virgin/Amaysim/Optus. The downside was that at time of signing up, Aldimobile did not support global roaming on pre-paid. This however changed just after I joined them, and they added the facility due to competition pressure from Amaysim.

So now, yes, you could change from your obsolete and very expensive Virgin Mobile pre-paid plan with cough coverage, expensive calls, expensive data and no global roaming support, to either of an Amaysim or Aldimobile pre-paid plan with better coverage, much cheaper calls/data/txts and included global roaming, and all your problems with Citibank would go away.

The porting process to take my number away from Virgin and give it to Aldimobile took less than 10 minutes to happen on a Sunday when I did it. Incidentally, 365day credit expiry on Aldimobile. When I left Virgin, the best they had was 90days before they took my unspent money. $15 credit can last me a whole year. If you can find a cheaper way to run a mobile phone with full global roaming support & Telstra coverage than that, then please tell me!

Good advice, thanks.
Regards,
Renato

 

[Renato1]

I have been travelling for over seven months now, through Europe (mostly the Balkans) Middle East and now in India, and our go-to cards are both Citibank debit and credit cards. We did let Citibank know before we left that we were travelling, but couldn’t tell them where because we are making it up as we go. Neither card has been blocked anywhere. The only issue we have had was the debit card wouldn’t work in Bulgaria. Had to resort to backup card there.

Good to know that the cards are working well. But you did notify them before you left. The issue is whether their new system with no notification possible SMS codes will work as well.
Regards,
Renato

 

[SC9]

I had the joy of getting my Citi Prestige card blocked whilst i was in HKG, making a couple of larger purchases in subsequent days. I had 28D as a backup, but decided to call Citi customer service. Call got picked up right away, and they lifted the hold (which they put in place after the first large purchase). Waited 10-mins to try the card again but still declined, so ring them up again and this time it worked and the second purchase went thru. I felt a bit like a criminal in the shop, with the sales assistant and his manager walking around aimlessly waiting for the card to be unblocked...

Glad we have a local prepaid sim (and some call credits) which allowed us to make overseas call.

Upon arriving back in AU, I lodged a complaint to Citi as I had notified them of the travel, and yet got the card blocked and no attempt of communications (email/sms/phone). They compensated this incident with a once-off 5000 points in the account.

 

[Archphoto]

I cancelled my Citibank card over 10 years ago when they cancelled it due to being used OS, while I was OS!!!. They had sent a *letter* notifying me to contact them if I had authorised such use.

Pretty b****y stupid when you're OS and I told them so when I returned, ripping them a new one for not calling me on my mobile. They couldn't have cared less - told them to cancel it then and there and I've never re-signed, in spite of them trying to get me back.

They'd left me in a real pickle and there was no way I was going to find myself in that situation again - grabbed an ANZ Visa and never looked back. At least they use their brains - call me to clarify use if it's somewhere I haven't been in a while, and I also notify them prior to travelling.

 

[Cynicor]

They were a lot worse back then, very twitchy, cancelling cards that were used even once in SE Asia. Much better now, and for a free-for-life signature I really can't complain. Of course now that the card has been gutted I can complain again

 

[Renato1]

I had the joy of getting my Citi Prestige card blocked whilst i was in HKG, making a couple of larger purchases in subsequent days. I had 28D as a backup, but decided to call Citi customer service. Call got picked up right away, and they lifted the hold (which they put in place after the first large purchase). Waited 10-mins to try the card again but still declined, so ring them up again and this time it worked and the second purchase went thru. I felt a bit like a criminal in the shop, with the sales assistant and his manager walking around aimlessly waiting for the card to be unblocked...

Glad we have a local prepaid sim (and some call credits) which allowed us to make overseas call.

Upon arriving back in AU, I lodged a complaint to Citi as I had notified them of the travel, and yet got the card blocked and no attempt of communications (email/sms/phone). They compensated this incident with a once-off 5000 points in the account.

Very odd experience you had, where even after ringing them the problem wasn't solved!

I get the impression that this blocking may have some logical design behind it in a computer algorithm, but that it appears totally random to the outside observer/user.

I wound up having no problem with using my card in Bali during my last trip in November, but I used it mainly at ATMs to get cash out (except for once at the Bali Bird Park where I paid the entrance fee with it). since I was using another card that accumulated points on credit transactions
Regards,
Renato

 

[N860CR]

I cancelled my Citibank card over 10 years ago when they cancelled it due to being used OS, while I was OS!!!. They had sent a *letter* notifying me to contact them if I had authorised such use.

Pretty b****y stupid when you're OS and I told them so when I returned, ripping them a new one for not calling me on my mobile. They couldn't have cared less - told them to cancel it then and there and I've never re-signed, in spite of them trying to get me back.

They'd left me in a real pickle and there was no way I was going to find myself in that situation again - grabbed an ANZ Visa and never looked back. At least they use their brains - call me to clarify use if it's somewhere I haven't been in a while, and I also notify them prior to travelling.

Had the same thing years and years ago with the old CitiBusiness Gold card.

Was in the USA and it just stopped working. No way to get it going again. They ended up telling me the "we sent you a letter" story. During the same trip, a whole lot of Amazon fake transactions came up on my Westpac Earth card. Westpac emailed and text me. Couldn't believe how far behind Citi were... and the complaints staff in Australia seemed to really think that a letter was the best option.

I still send them a secure message regarding all major int travel now (ie: when I'll be in multiple countries in short periods). They always respond with "you don't need to tell us, but we've noted it on your account". Touch wood... haven't had an issue for a while (including in places like ZA, Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria etc which should throw up a flag)