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If you have a Gold or Platinum account with your Bank or have any of the accounts where you pay a monthly fee for free travel insurance, breakdown cover etc etc you may also find that they process foreign transactions for free, ie they don't levy this 2% or minimum £4 type of fee for each card transaction that you do.  Worth checking with your Bank.

Ali

The golden rule No 1 is:

DO NOT FORGET TO TAKE YOUR PIN for credit and debit cards.

Billie ......I hope you have told HSBC where to stick the account ...to take the action you described when you have NOT reported your card stolen and put you through all the worry they did is totally out of order.......have they compensated you in any way for their errors...........I bet they havent....I am so glad I am not with HSBC.

been off line for a few days, but yes i am still with hsbc, i had every intention of telling em where to shove it, but by the time we got home i'd calmed down.  would take 3 pages to tell you the whole drama of that particular holiday, suffice to say, everything that could go wrong did, but, funny how you only remember the good things when you look back and the bad things now seem funny!

if they do it again this year tho, then they will be 1 customer less!!!

if they do it again this year tho, then they will be 1 customer less!!!

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Hopefully, next time you will be able to let them know in good time that you will be travelling abroad and then you might not suffer these problems. 

It does not guarantee that your card will not be 'blocked' (which is not a true 'blocking' - but the French don't understand that!), but it improves the chance of a cash-trouble-free journey. 

All it takes is an advance phone call - believe me, I do it all the time.   :-) 

Oozat

I built some of those international ATM systems back in the 80's and 90's and am arguably prouder of them than of any of the rest of my work. They work fine and I always make a point of using them ... specially the ones I was in on:-)

This year tho, the French are having a prob getting their heads round our new chip & pin. They've had them since the early 80's and a whole generation has grown up used to our cards not working in their handhelds. (Really, a French guest came to my wedding in 1984 and was gutted her chip card wouldn't work in Oxford Street .. prolly a good job in the long run or she'd still be paying it off!)

On the other hand... there's a recent thread about how it took 19 days for me to fail to open an account with Nationwide this year. They've got a bad attack of call-centre-itis and couldn't open a tin of rice pudding these days. The update is... after 2 weeks in France using our cards like there was no tomorrow .. we'd have saved maybe a tenner with Nationwide. Not worth the hassle, if you ask me.

Louisa, I had a hassle with Abbey's Indian call centres too. My precise reason for banking with them is the high chance you have of talking to a mature adult (in my branch middle-aged mums a bit like me), who can speak in sentences and get stuff done. Last time I phoned I got a 20-something in Delhi (though it could have been anywhere) who was totally focussed on "processing" me in the 20 seconds allocated. I mentioned this when I was in the branch and they said it was totally random which call centre you got but they'd heard if you call Head Office during working hours and ask to be put through you'll always get a UK call centre. I don't know whether this works and I don't know if it's the location of the call centre that matters but I thought I'd pass it on:-)

Liz

As the topic is open, has anyone used their Chip & Pin cards in the Supermarkets in France, and do they work?

Joe

Hi Joe, I find that in the supermarkets all over Europe they will give you the slip to sign as in the 'old' days if the chip and pin is not accepted or doesn't work.

Phil.

I had one instance where my card wouldn't work in the supermarket but other than that it was fine.  Still have no idea why it wouldn't work - just one of those things I guess.

Ali  

Thanks for the info, means I can buy my shopping using the card.

Joe

I think the only problems we had pinning were the cashiers assuming we couldn't. We went early in the season this year & they just wren't used to Brits being able to pin. They'll have got the hang of it by now.

Though it makes you think... the British banks might have made things a bit easier if major outlets in France & Spain had been briefed.

Liz