Credit card travel disaster protection?






    And if you only brought cash, and that's what was stolen, then keep your fingers crossed that the authorities rival their fictional counterparts on "Law & Order" or "Hawaii Five-O." Then, just maybe, you won't have to beg your family members to wire you enough money to get back home.

  2. If you become sick, a credit card can speed your treatment. Sure, it's unlikely, but Litman throws out a pretty terrifying scenario: "Let's say you're in Zimbabwe, and you come down with dysentery, and you need $20,000 for a private aircraft to take you to another country where you can get better treatment," says Litman. "If your limit is $10,000, and you need your credit raised, and you explain what's going on, and can fax over a doctor's certificate, they'll give you that."


  3. Credit card exchange rates won't drain your budget as fast. True, many credit cards charge a foreign transaction fee for purchases (not all: Capital One is free of them, and certain cards from Chase, Citi and American Express have removed the foreign transaction fee), but even then it's usually cheaper to pay the fee than to convert your American dollars or traveler's checks into foreign currency. (American Express and Citi are advertisers).

    Why is it cheaper? "Credit card purchases are exchanged at the interbank exchange rate, usually the best rate one can get for currency exchange," says Howard Dvorkin, founder of the nonprofit Consolidating Credit Counseling Services, Inc.

  4. Credit cards won't accidentally pay the wrong amount. Think about the scenarios that might happen if you wouldn't know a rupee or a peso if a Brink's truck full of them crashed into you. "If you're not familiar with the currency, it's so easy to put down the wrong bill," Litman says. "I've seen that happen, and while most people are honest, some are not."


  5. Credit cards make it easy to rent a car, secure a hotel room and book a flight. A lot of people love traveling with credit cards due to travel perks--the best credit cards, for instance, will let you collect frequent flyer miles. But, sure, if you aren't one of those people, a debit card will get you a flight just fine whereas paying for an airline ticket with cash can be problematic--and even cause suspicion from an airline. In this post 9/11-era, do you really want that?

    And paying for a hotel room and a rental car with a debit card can be even trickier. You may come through perfectly OK, but you'll want to call ahead if you can, to make sure that the rental car company accepts debit cards. Then you'll want to ask if they'll make you pay a deposit for renting a car . Some companies will tack on an extra two, three hundred or more dollars that won't be available in your checking account until you return the car.

    Some hotels may let you hold the room with a debit card but then turn you away at the desk because you plan on paying with that debit card. Or they may let you pay with the debit card, but add on one of those holds of several hundred dollars.

    And given that it can be hard enough to stay in a hotel and use a rental car in America with a debit card, you can imagine how things might go in another country if you have a language barrier to overcome as well.


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