Practical Traveler - NYTimes.com
Published: August 24, 2010

By Susan Stellin

I WAS driving to the Los Angeles airport in April when apparently I did something suspicious: I stopped at a gas station and filled up the tank.

By the time I returned the rental car and got to my gate, I had a fraud alert message from my credit card company, U.S. Bank. Since I don’t own a car and rarely buy gas, it seems that $13 fill-up raised a red flag.

Such is the state of credit card security, a continuing battle between card issuers and criminals who steal account numbers, with consumers caught in the fray. Whether travelers are more likely to become victims of credit card fraud is debatable, but we’re certainly more likely to get tripped up by efforts to combat fraud, especially overseas.

Here are some things to watch out for if you plan on paying with plastic, which isn’t quite as widely accepted as the ad campaigns for credit cards would have you believe.

Avoiding a Freeze on Your Account

Most travelers know it’s a good idea to call your credit card company before a trip to a foreign country, so your purchases in Bangkok or Barcelona don’t trigger a freeze on your account. Banks rely on antifraud software that monitors customers’ spending patterns, which means that any time you stray from your usual habits — like buying groceries in another state instead of at a store in your home ZIP code — your bank might become concerned.

I was surprised that a cheap gas purchase in California could also freeze my account, so I called U.S. Bank to find out if travelers need to start alerting their banks about their domestic travels, which seemed like overkill to me.

It probably is, said Dave Leiker, a senior vice president with U.S. Bank. He told me that besides watching for unusual spending patterns, banks also monitor where criminals use stolen cards, places like automated payment kiosks in metropolitan areas.

“We may have been seeing a trend where the bad guys were out there using stolen credit cards at gas pumps,” he said.

That would explain why I didn’t get a fraud call when I bought gas more recently in rural Pennsylvania. But it also reinforces an important point about traveling with plastic: carry more than one card, in case one is declined.

Overseas, it can be much more of a hassle to unfreeze a card, especially if you don’t have a cellphone with international service.

Rejection of Cards Abroad

For globe-trotting travelers, another issue is that many countries in Europe, as well as Japan, Canada, Mexico and other nations, have adopted a type of credit card that has a chip and requires customers to enter a PIN number instead of the ones with a magnetic stripe on the back that we still use in the United States.

Merchants that accept Visa, MasterCard and American Express are supposed to let customers pay with either type of card. But employees at some retailers outside the United States don’t always know what to do with the magnetic version.

There are also automated kiosks that accept only the “chip and PIN” cards, particularly in European train stations, parking garages, gas stations and some tollbooths. In those cases, Americans with magnetic stripe cards usually have to wait in line to pay with cash or have a clerk swipe their cards. Travelers say those lines can be long, which is especially frustrating if you’re trying to catch a train. And at unattended tollbooths, you may get stuck if you don’t have coins you can pay with instead.

So how common is this problem? In a study last September, the research company Aite Group found that nearly half of American cardholders who have traveled abroad in the past few years have had some problem using a debit or credit card, and 16 percent said their card was rejected because of this issue with magnetic stripe acceptance overseas.

“I think many cardholders assume when they travel abroad that it is much like being in the United States,” said Ron Shevlin, a senior analyst with Aite Group, pointing out that in addition to the chip versus magnetic stripe problem, merchants in other parts of the world often have higher minimum-purchase requirements to use a credit card or simply don’t accept the cards because they don’t want to pay the fees that card companies charge retailers.

He also suggested checking your credit limit before a trip, since banks have reduced credit limits for some cardholders; travel expenses can push up against those maximums.

(6:30 p.m. EDT) -- Since Monday's tragic shooting death of a young Carnival Victory passenger on an independent tour of St. Thomas, we've heard -- on Cruise Critic's Facebook page, on the message boards and via our U.K. blog -- many times: "I never knew St. Thomas had a crime problem."

St. Thomas has long struggled with crime, much in the same way big cities throughout the United States do, which has been another major point of discussion among Cruise Critic readers. The difference here, though, is that St. Thomas is marketed as America's "paradise." And if it surprises some travelers to find out St. Thomas is far from paradise these days, rest assured its problems are no secret to residents, politicians, travel agents and cruise line executives.

Cruise Critic's St. Thomas port profile warns that "crime can be an issue" -- outside of tourist areas. A scan of local headlines (and recent press releases on the USVI Police Department's Web site, on topics ranging from drug and weapons arrests to domestic violence) paints a grim picture, though not against visitors.

But Monday's tragic incident changes the whole game. The shootout occurred in broad daylight, not far from a major -- and packed -- tourist area. The victim was traveling on a crowded open-air safari bus when she was caught in gang-related crossfire that had broken out in a cemetery en route to Coki Point Beach, where the Coral World aquarium is located.

In this case, a "person of interest" has been arrested. A spokesperson for St. Thomas shared a prepared statement from the United States Virgin Islands Department of Tourism, which dubs the shooting "an isolated incident" and says crimes against visitors are rare. A request for additional information on what St. Thomas is doing to protect visitors was not fulfilled by press time.

In the various debates that have cropped up this week on Cruise Critic, many want to know: When a ship visits a port of call where crime is a known issue, at least locally, is the cruise line and its staff responsible for warning its passengers?

Does that duty fall to planning guides and resources, like Cruise Critic? Should travelers take it upon themselves to decide to which ports or places they should and should not go?

Or is cruise travel in the Caribbean a case of caveat emptor: Let the cruiser beware?
So, what happens next?

Several cruise lines have halted excursions to the Coki Beach area, but none have pulled ships out of St. Thomas, a bold idea we discussed in our blog (it is U.K.-centric, but you don't have to be from the U.K. to read it). But if they do depart, it certainly won't be the first time rampant crime has led to Caribbean reshuffling. Consider St. Croix: The once booming cruise port, offering access to gorgeous scenery, great surfing and pristine beaches, still gets traffic -- but is far less popular than it once was.

Why? Crime wasn't battled, so cruise ships hoisted anchor and went elsewhere.

To that end, what happens next with St. Thomas largely depends on the response of tourism officials and law enforcement authorities. In the near term, the Virgin Islands Daily News reports that Tourism Commissioner Beverly Nicholson-Doty and Police Commissioner Novelle Francis Jr. will meet tomorrow with the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association, which represents 15 member lines sailing in the region, to share information on enhanced safety and security measures and the territory's crisis management plan.

Stay tuned.

--by Melissa Paloti, Managing Editor
Cruise Critic

The beautiful island of Taha’a was chosen as the prime location for one of the season final episodes of ABC's The Bachelorette. This episode will air on Monday July 19 from 8-10 PM on ABC - be sure and tune in!

Bachelorette, Ali Fedotowsky and her three remaining bachelors started their adventure to paradise on award-winning Air Tahiti Nui. The first date in the islands took place at the breathtaking  and remote location of Le Taha’a Island Resort & Spa, a member of Relais & Chateaux.

By Mike McQuaide

Special to The Seattle Times

At the edge of a twisting tornado of Parisian traffic — tiny cars, jumbo tour buses, putt-putting motor scooters — our bicycle tour group is poised to make what seems like a death-defying dash across the Place de la Concorde. Essentially a 20-acre roundabout between the Champs-Elysees and Tuileries Garden in the heart of Paris, it's famous for, among other things, being where Marie Antoinette and thousands of others lost their heads, guillotined during the 18th century Reign of Terror.

"What we're doing now is called an ATM, an Advanced Traffic Maneuver, OK?" says Bubba Brooks, our fearless 23-year-old Fat Tire Bike Tour guide. "We're going to pull out into the square here, we're going to hang a left. We're going to run a red light — don't worry, I've done this a few times before — then we're going to head to the middle of the plaza, all right?"

If you say so.

Gripping our handlebars, the 12 of us await Bubba's signal. "Go!"

And we're off — pedaling into the cobbled roadway en masse, the way a pod of orcas would work together to seek a favorable current in Haro Strait. In no time at all, we traverse the massive boulevard and easily slip into our own little safe haven — our own lane, sorta — far to the right edge of Place de la Concorde.

There's safety in numbers. Our group is highly visible to the heavy traffic that circles the Place de la Concorde's fountains and the 3,300-year-old obelisk of Luxor which, pro-cycling fanatic that I am, I recognize from the final stage of the Tour de France race.

In little more than a minute, voilà — we're at Tuileries Garden, our ATM complete!

"That wasn't too bad," Bubba says.

Not at all, and minutes later — our trickiest maneuver of our four-hour bike tour behind us — we're walking our bikes across the expansive garden, the Louvre museum directly ahead of us, headed to an outdoor cafe for lunch.

Fat Tire Bike Tours is an American-owned and operated company that features English-speaking guides. It's one of a number of companies that offer bike tours of Paris, a city that in recent years has become more bike-friendly.

Along with some 230 miles of city bike lanes (some shared with city buses — not as scary as it sounds), Paris encourages cycling with a curbside bike-rental system called Vélib (which translates roughly as bicycle freedom). Every 300 yards throughout the city, you'll find fleets of Vélib bikes — some 20,000 in all — available for rent, accessed via a sidewalk self-service pay station.

Taking the tour

Fat Tire and several other companies rent bikes and offer tours. And expansive parks such as Champ de Mars, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, are big enough that one could spend the afternoon with minimal vehicle contact by pedaling in the park, to the nearby Trocadero Gardens, and on wide pathways on either side of the Seine River.

Our tour group met under the Eiffel Tower where — amid the hundreds of tourists, schoolchildren, gun-toting soldiers, and African vendors offering trinkets — we saw our tour guide Bubba holding high the Fat Tire sign. We took a pleasant 10-minute walk to the office, where we picked out our bikes; received a quick lesson in operating the comfy, if tank-heavy, three-speed cruiser bikes; and got tips on how to ride safely in the city in a pack.

Then off we went. Note that I didn't mention that this is where we picked out our helmets (although they are available at Fat Tire). That's because cyclists in Paris don't wear bike helmets. During my recent 2 ½-week visit to Paris, I saw hundreds of folks pedaling bikes and not a single person wearing a helmet.

From the Fat Tire office we pedaled the firm hard-packed dirt surface of Champ de Mars south to our first stop at Ecole Militaire. Bubba described it as France's West Point, an elite military college that counts Napoleon as one of its alumni. He points out bullet holes on the building's exterior from the time of the Nazi occupation of Paris. The city's history is mind-boggling, and we're just getting started.

We head out onto the streets on what, with such a large group of riders, feels like our personal bike lane. We pass the otherworldly UNESCO headquarters building and stop at Place de Breteuil.

Here Bubba shares his deep admiration for Louis Pasteur, the French chemist and microbiologist who's honored in the center of the plaza with a stone monument. In the fall Bubba, an Oklahoman whose been a Fat Tire guide for two years, will begin working toward a Ph.D. in plant and microbial biology at University of California, Berkeley (I'd venture he'll be the only one in the department named Bubba).

From there it's a leisurely 10-minute jaunt up Avenue de Breteuil, during which I chat with some of my fellow riders. They're from Arizona, Texas, Chicago, London and beyond.

"We'd borrowed bikes before when we were here visiting our daughter," says Yvan Baeten, a Belgian who's riding today with his wife, Magda Wirix. "This is very nice, going with a guide, because you learn so much."

Bubba stops us just outside the eye-catching, gold-laden Dome Church which houses Napoleon's tomb. It's surrounded by the massive 17th-century building Les Invalides, a former military hospital which today is the Army Museum. Because this is a bike tour, here and at other landmarks we don't enter the church or museum, but straddle our bikes while Bubba feeds us tidbits of history.

A bike tour is a terrific way to familiarize yourself with the layout of Paris and learn just enough history to figure out what you want to pursue on your own. And get a little exercise, too, although Paris is mostly flat and our pace slow. A Fat Tire Bike Tour never will be confused with a health club spin class. But it's the perfect pace for safe sightseeing.

We pedal some more, crossing the Seine River on Pont Alexandre III, considered Paris' most ornate bridge. It's adorned with gold statues of winged creatures and heroic figures and leads eventually to the Champs Elysees district and the Arc de Triomphe.

We skip the Arc de Triomphe, however, and once across the Seine, go right and pedal a vehicle-free bike path east to the Place de la Concorde, where we'll make our ATM.

After lunch and a stop outside the Louvre museum, we head back to Champ de Mars for goodbyes and some final photos aboard our bikes. In all, we rode about six miles.

"I did one of these tours last year in London," Jeremy Barton from Yorkshire, England, tells me as we take turns photographing each other with the Eiffel Tower in the background. "It was lovely, just like this one."

Ooh, London. Next time, for sure.

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