Check your international debit card dates!

[audreyh1]

Was really scrambling yesterday and today. I just happened to pull out the debit cards we use internationally last night and got a couple of nasty surprises.

Both Schwab debit cards had expired earlier this year. No notice so didn't realize.

One of the Fidelity debit cards is fine, but DH's card never got renewed.

All of these non-renewals were because the debit cards were marked as inactive because we hadn't traveled internationally this decade (due to family obligations plus covid). DH didn't use his on the last trip, I used mine.

I ordered DH a new debit online from Fidelity last night. And called Schwab today. They marked our account debit cards as active (checking has been active) and issued a new pair of debit cards. I barely had enough time to get them, wow! We actually have plenty of Euros, but I want our cards!

This had not been a problem in the past because we traveled internationally every year.

In the future I'm putting infrequently used card expiration dates in the calendar with reminders ahead of time to use each of them at least once before the expiration date.

 

[brett]

Was really scrambling yesterday and today. I just happened to pull out the debit cards we use internationally last night and got a couple of nasty surprises.

Both Schwab debit cards had expired earlier this year. No notice so didn't realize.

One of the Fidelity debit cards is fine, but DH's card never got renewed.

All of these non-renewals were because the debit cards were marked as inactive because we hadn't traveled internationally this decade (due to family obligations plus covid). DH didn't use his on the last trip, I used mine.

I ordered DH a new debit online from Fidelity last night. And called Schwab today. They marked our account debit cards as active (checking has been active) and issued a new pair of debit cards. I barely had enough time to get them, wow! We actually have plenty of Euros, but I want our cards!

This had not been a problem in the past because we traveled internationally every year.

In the future I'm putting infrequently used card expiration dates in the calendar with reminders ahead of time to use each of them at least once before the expiration date.

Good advice.

But if you travel and use your credit cards to cover insurance check your credit card coverages. We discovered that one of our credit cards removed rental auto insurance from their card offering. We did not, to my knowledge, get a written heads up on this.

We were not aware that one of our cards included trip cancellation insurance. We had to cancel a China trip and decided to check our cards. Luckily, unknowingly, we used the 'right' card. Now we check our cards each year for this attribute rather that assume that the coverage will always be in force.

We have out of country 60 day medical/evac as part of my pension benefits. But...it is a benefit not an entitlement. Each January prior to escaping to the sun I check that the benefits still include this coverage.

 

[braumeister]

In the future I'm putting infrequently used card expiration dates in the calendar with reminders ahead of time to use each of them at least once before the expiration date.

One of my spreadsheets has a sheet showing all my credit and debit cards, with pertinent details like expiration date, etc.

It has saved me a headache more than once.

 

[brett]

We also do the same with our passports, visas where applicable, our DL's and our Nexus cards. Also our International DL however that is much easier since it expires after 12months.

We renew our ten year passports at about the 12 month mark. Many countries insist on a passport with a minimum 6 months left on it for entry. We have done, and still do, a fair amount of spontaneous travel. Not unusual for us to see an attractive opportunity/offering and leave within a week or a month.

 

[audreyh1]

I also just discovered that a couple of the cards that we will be carrying aren’t yet tap-to-pay!

Unfortunately though I’d looked at the cards a little while back, I didn’t notice the missing contactless logo, assuming they were as most of my recently issued cards are.

It won’t matter very much because we will be primarily using ApplePay for contactless I expect, but still, this is annoying!

I’ll deal with that when we return from the trip.

 

[audreyh1]

The new Schwab debit cards showed up today. Very happy about that!

 

[Lucie]

Thanks for the reminder. We are leaving for Europe tomorrow and will check our cards.