Q&A: Using a separate credit card for online purchases and automatic payments

Dear Liz: I saw your recent column from the couple upset about the inconvenience of having to reset the automatic payments when their credit card was reissued due to fraud. We had the same problem (our credit card has been reissued six times now!) and got some great advice I’d like to share. We got a separate credit card that is used for nothing but automatic payments and online purchases. It has never been hacked like our other card that we use constantly in the community because we earn airline miles. The last two times our regular card had to be replaced was in the Target and Home Depot hacking, but the other card has been fine so far. We are keeping our fingers crossed. Our issuer has now given us a chip card to replace the constantly hacked one, so I hope we have better luck going forward with both credit cards.

Answer: Several other readers wrote to say they do something similar by using different cards for different purposes, including devoting one to making automatic charges.

It might be wise to have a separate card just for online purchases, however, since the incidence of “card not present” fraud (including online and phone transactions) is higher than that for transactions where the card is physically presented to the merchant.

Related Posts


  1. Thank you for bringing light to this. My card holder assured me I would have to take no action as to the automatic payments, WRONG. The payments cleared the first month on the new card number, but the 2nd month, they all rejected. What floored me, and led to my cancelling a few services was the RUDE and threatening letters I received from providers
    NOT creditor, providers, whereupon I canceled the services.
    One merchant was even so incredulous as to reply they had NOT heard of ANYONE having their
    card number changed for Target and/or Home Depot hacks. Really! I have some extra credit
    each month.