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Research: Disadvantages of travelling with credit cards - Credit-Land.com

Credit cards or plastic money has revolutionized money transactions all over the world. There are many advantages of credit cards besides facilitating cashless transactions. They are easy to carry, have a lesser chance of theft and are accepted all over the world.

The above benefits are the reasons why people find it handy and helpful in traveling with credit cards. One must also see the fact that traveling with credit cards has certain drawbacks. These drawbacks can be summarized in the following points.

Drawbacks of travelling with credit cards

  1. Credit cards cannot meet all expenses. Although Visa cards and Master cards are now accepted worldwide, they have their use limited to places that have card swiping machines. Smaller joints or eateries or even flea markets do not have the facility of using credit cards. So if a tourist has shopping in mind and he is travelling with credit cards only, he might have to stick to costlier retail shops than the cheaper road side outlets. This makes use of credit cards when travelling very costly.

  2. The credit card has the risk of getting cloned. At an unknown destination it would be difficult for you to stop any kind of fraud in such cases.

  3. The travellers` credit cards have a higher interest rate than the normal ones. This adds up to the accumulated expenses resulting in a huge bill amount.

  4. Use of credit cards to withdraw money can be a matter of inconvenience. The length of the pin code numbers vary from country to country. If used without prior knowledge then the credit card might get blocked.

  5. If travelling to third world countries credit cards may prove to be useless. This is mainly because these countries do not use ATM`s and secondly the use of swiping machines is very limited.

  6. For every instance of withdrawal of money in a foreign country, the service charge levied is much higher than in the home country.

  7. For card security purposes, card holders travelling to foreign countries are instructed to put their signatures on the other side of the card. This practice although good for the security of the card prevents the other family members from using them.

  8. Any kind of discrepancy during any transaction using the card, at a foreign location, will be hard to resolve.

  9. Since the working hours differ from country to country and is set according to the time zone of the country so getting help from the service centres when located at a foreign country may be very difficult.

Disclaimer: This editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the banks or credit card issuer(s). Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, not those of the banks or credit card issuer(s), and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the banks or credit card issuer(s). Reasonable efforts are made to present accurate info, however all info is presented without warranty. Consult with the issuing bank of the card or account for terms & conditions.
All rates and fees, and other terms and conditions of the products mentioned in this article/post are accurate as of the last update date but are subject to change. See the current products' Terms & Conditions on the issuing banks' websites.