Many experienced travelers who pride themselves on their ability to find cheap airplane tickets, discount hotels, and cheap vacation packages have been frustrated when trying to use a U.S. issued credit card abroad.
American Express, MasterCard and Visa require merchants anywhere in the world that accepts their cards to also accept stripe and sign cards issued in the U.S. Travelers nevertheless experience problems when trying to use such cards oversees at automatic dispensing machines such as train and transit ticket vending machines, highway and bridge toll booths, parking lots and 24/7 gas stations.
Most worldwide banks outside the U.S. have changed their credit card security system from the stripe and sign system still used in the U.S. to a chip and pin system. Instead of machines taking information off of a magnetic stripe and signing to verify the transaction, machines abroad are getting data from a chip embedded in the credit card and then having the card holder verify the purchase by entering a PIN.
Up until now no U.S. bank has made chip and pin cards available to ordinary citizens claiming that it would be too expensive to convert their existing system to the new system.
Two banks have announced that they will start issuing a dual mode (that will include both a stripe and a chip) card. Wells Fargo is testing new cards with 15,000 customers it has identified as frequent overseas travelers. They will receive new cards automatically with no surcharge or fee. Well Fargo will issue additional new cards depending on the success of this test.
Chase is rolling out dual credit cards to its premium Palladium card holders. Experts expect other banks to offer such cards in the near term. www.cheapfares.com