I have an Amazon card and a Rakuten card. Several times, when I tried to buy a flight ticket or hotel or whatever a bit expensive, I got rejected and I needed to call the support to unlock such purchases.
With Amazon, I wasn’t able to do it. With Rakuten, I could just call within the opening hours but it’s 9-16h JST… unless to tell you it’s hard when I try to do anything when I’m in Europe or Amercia.
Do you know a credit card of which the support is available 24/7 so that I can do the urgent purchase?
FYI, it happened when I wanted to change the date of my flight ticket at the last minute…
Thanks!
**Edit:** It’s a security that can’t be disabled (dixit rakuten), we always have to call to temporarily allow a specific transaction.
This security is different than :
* the one that sends a confirmation via the app, SMS or voice call
* the daily/weekly/monthly/yearly limit
I don’t have this issue with my N26 or Wise card, European cards.
6 comments
I have a SMBC card and they send confirmation to you via their app. You can approve via the app and retry the transaction.
Have you checked the cards daily, weekly and monthly limits? For some cards the default settings for the limits are pretty low. Maybe you can increase it?
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If you get a higher tier card you should get 24 hours help desk. I know JCB platinum tier has it. With gold tier you only get 9-17h help desk.
I got my card security locked a couple of times as well when I was abroad, but there wasn’t much time difference then so one quick phone call did unlock it.
We have Citibank credit cards. We call customer support to inform them of unusually big purchases like flights and inform them of our fight dates (and stopovers) so they don’t flag them. They’ll confirm whether or not you plan to make any big purchases while away, too.
It was great when they called us 2 days after a layover in Hong Kong to question a Louis Vuitton purchase made the next day. No, we are back in Japan. OK, we’ll cancel that payment and that card and issue you a new one right now.
I don’t understand how this is different from the SMS security, I get that when I made a purchase abroad or buy an expensive plane ticket. I’ve never had to call support, the automated system has always worked. This is with the Amazon SMBC card and with JCB.