When you want comfort food, and ya want to absorb the local culture, ya need a good breakfast, along with the truck drivers and farmers.
A stack of pancakes, and hash browns with an egg on top-- for about 11 bucks.
And those 11 dollars damn near ruined my vacation. I typed in my pin number, the computer rejected it…and an hour later I got a message from Visa that my card is blocked, due to suspicious activity. No access to my money.
I spent a couple hours on international phone calls straightening it all out, and trying not to panic.
I second that post. My credit card number was stolen less than 24 hours before i embarked for the UK. Their security department called me in the evening to let me know.
I spent most of the next day arranging for a temporary replacement card to be sent to my hotel in the UK. What saved the trip was that i was traveling with my son, and his credit card was unrelated.
(My regular second card is discover, which rarely works outside the US. My husband also has an unrelated card, but wasn’t with me on that trip.)
I hadn’t done anything wrong. My credit card company hadn’t done anything wrong. Shit happens.
Maybe it’s different over there but mine have nothing to do with my bank unless you count the debit card which I rarely use. I have an AmEx that’s my primary card and a Visa for places that don’t take AmEx
I think that in Israel, all the credit card companies work exclusively through the banks. Businesses may have more options, but I think private citizens’ credit cards have to be linked to a specific bank account,
ETA: ninja’ed.
I expect things are different in your home of Israel.
In the US, most upper middle class folks have multiple mainstream credit cards. They’re all issued by banks, but you have no need of any other account relationship with a bank to have their CC. They’re happy to lend you money at usurious rates despite them holding no collateral assets they could directly seize.
I have 5, but that’s a bit unusual and a partly a legacy of my late first wife, her and my years as a business owners, and other similar complexities. Only 2 get regular use; the others are effectively just stand-by lines of credit.
As a separate matter, some retailers issue their-store-only cards that afford discounts or other benefits unavailable to users of universal cards like Visa or Mastercard. I have 3 or 4 of those, of which only one gets much use.
Well, we’re going. We are at the gate in the US, waiting to board. They just announced no wifi on the plane. I’m glad i downloaded some stuff last night.
I’m also anxious about the credit card situation. We have 4 between the two of us, but we were only able to get a PIN (often needed to use credit cards outside the US) on one of them. I paid off the balance of that one. We do also have ATM cards that know we are traveling, and i brought more cash than i usually travel with.
I have no idea how things work in Israel, but there’s no logical reason at all why a credit card should have to be “linked” to a bank account. In Canada, I believe that all credit card issuers are banks*, but you don’t have to have an account with a bank to get their credit card. I’m sure that most cardholders have accounts at the issuing banks, and that for some purposes banks may assume this, but it’s not a requirement. There’s no required “linkage” to any bank account. But again, things may be different over there.
* There are all kinds of general-purpose credit cards branded with the names and logos of businesses and other organizations, but I believe the actual issuer is always a bank, except for cards only good for one specific business.
Since i flew out of an American airport, I’m pretty sure the gate agent is American, not Israeli. It was a Delta flight. I’m sure they have enough business to hire locals.
Sure, flight attendants and pilots travel, and maybe they are based in Israel (two of them spoke Hebrew). But local gate agents?
We’re now in Tel Aviv, and not surprisingly, Arabic is one of the languages on all the signs. Lucky for me, most of the signs also include English. Although my horrible phonetic Hebrew was good enough to decipher the Hebrew version of the city i flew from on the baggage carousel.
Rather to my surprise, I’ve never had an easier time clearing passport control and customs than here at Ben Gurion. I showed my passport and my face to a machine, and it issued me a ticket that said i could stay until November. A guy glanced at it and waved me through. At customs, they didn’t list “food”, only “fresh fruits and vegetables” and “raw meat”, so i had nothing to declare. (Many countries ask you to declare any food, and i routinely declare my emergency chocolate bars that i always travel with.)
No trouble getting some sheckels from an ATM. We’re on our way.
Cool. I’m mostly booked except Thursday and Friday nights. Um, am i going to be able to get supper Friday night? Should i buy groceries in advance to eat in my hotel room?
Nah, most restaurants in Tel Aviv are open on Friday night. As a rule, the more expensive a restaurant is, the less likely it is to be kosher, and therefore the more likely it is to be open on the Sabbath. That means you won’t find falafel (in a Jewish neighborhood) on Friday night, but you will find sushi. Also, there’s a chain of 24/7 grocery stores called AM/PM on virtually every corner if you still want to eat in.
I’m glad i downloaded some stuff last night.
