Troulbe w/credit cards in RP?!

[CuriousGuy 0]

Hello, I am one month away from my trip and have stumbled upon another concern.

I tried to book an inter-island flight on my cards, using their website. It rejected two valid cards. When I got through

to a phone rep, I tried EVERY valid card I had, and their "system cannot validate" the cards!? The rep said this happens {sometimes?} with international cards. There was NO supervisor available to speak with, and no answer at their I.T. department.

Has anyone ELSE encountered this? I'm concerned now about hotels, and other businesses.

Thanks for some input.

[tallcoolone 102]

Visa seems to be taken by most places "if" they take Credit Cards.

American Express and Discover are worthless in PI.

I always just carry cash. I will change in about 1000 US at a bank for Pesos.

Cash is always accepted in PI.

[kaye 0]

just call up your credit card company and inform them that you will be traveling to the philippines. I am still in the philippines but i currently have a usa issued capital one credit card and just last week i was purchasing a $300 thing in a mall here in the philippines. i had to call up their fraud department to inform them about my situation that my card wont go through and after that call i have not encountered any problem anymore. they just told me to inform them ahead of time if i will be traveling again so that i wont encounter the same problems again.

[ED*Riza 0]

Hello, I am one month away from my trip and have stumbled upon another concern.

I tried to book an inter-island flight on my cards, using their website. It rejected two valid cards. When I got through

to a phone rep, I tried EVERY valid card I had, and their "system cannot validate" the cards!? The rep said this happens {sometimes?} with international cards. There was NO supervisor available to speak with, and no answer at their I.T. department.

Has anyone ELSE encountered this? I'm concerned now about hotels, and other businesses.

Thanks for some input.

Hello,

This happened to us last October when we had our vacation in Boracay and cebu so we decidedto just cancel Cebu PAcific and

used asian spirit from manila to boracay and boracay -cebu we used PAL .

I would recommend PAL for inter island.

For the hotels we used asianrooms and it is cheaper than going to hotel websites..

Hello, I am one month away from my trip and have stumbled upon another concern.

I tried to book an inter-island flight on my cards, using their website. It rejected two valid cards. When I got through

to a phone rep, I tried EVERY valid card I had, and their "system cannot validate" the cards!? The rep said this happens {sometimes?} with international cards. There was NO supervisor available to speak with, and no answer at their I.T. department.

Has anyone ELSE encountered this? I'm concerned now about hotels, and other businesses.

Thanks for some input.

Hello,

This happened to us last October when we had our vacation in Boracay and cebu so we decidedto just cancel Cebu PAcific and

used asian spirit from manila to boracay and boracay -cebu we used PAL .

I would recommend PAL for inter island.

For the hotels we used asianrooms and it is cheaper than going to hotel websites..

And other thing we used also AMex and got no problem with it there ( we called amex prior to our trip).

[RonMay 1]

i had a problem w/ them also last oct when i book our flight mnl-cdo, got problem w/ my card. so i called, and they say as of now they dont accept credit card abroad coz they cant check the authorization code etc and that the best way is to have a family member book it for u in phil. so i sent my mom some money to buy the ticket for me and it went fine...

[ED*Riza 0]

Another thing by the way, if you book PAL be sure to bring the CC. We forgot to bring ours when we landed in Bora . We end up cancelling that trip from bora-cebu and book another one.

[RadzNSteve 0]

i had the same problem with PAL when booking a flight from USA to Philippines, PAL system would never accept my card, Then I tried to get expidia to do it and they had the same issue. I evenulally booked my flight with Northwest all the way to Davao, Northwest put me on PAL from Manila to Davao but at least i was able to pay for it, That was last May, This month i booked with PAL a flight for Radz from Gensan to Manila, She didnt have the credit card or a copy and they wouldnt let her on the plane, so she purchased another ticket in Gensan although the supervisor did give her a discount. So you need the card or a photocopy of the card with anohter picture ID of the card holder before PAL will let you use the ticket. even though it was booked a month in advance and PAL already had charged me for the ticket

[Jose Rizal 1]

Smaller establishments here in the Philippines often encounter difficulties in using international credit cards. Often citing the difficulty of getting online. But the truth is international cards pay longer and the preferred currency here is cash.

[RICHIE07 0]

I usually called my credit card company before my trip to let them know that I'll be using my card overseas. I always take two credit cards and 2 debit cards (Visa and Master card) with me overseas. And $500 cash for emergency in case I won't be able to used my debit card to withdraw some money.

Edited December 12, 2008 by RICHIE07

[CuriousGuy 0]

I called a friend when I got to work. He said it was a 'security' issue for them more than anything, and it forces you to book through an agent. So, I have an agent working on it now.

As to notifying my cards, I've already done so, and will remind them again a week before. They have ALL assured me that where I see the Visa/MC symbol, I'll be safe. However, there will be a 3% charge for each transaction. As best I understand it, is that I would be paying the normal merchant fee that store here would absorb as the cost of doing business.

EdRiza, thanks for the hotel lead, I'll look into that.

VIc

[mRs StOcKwElL 1]

Hello, I am one month away from my trip and have stumbled upon another concern.

I tried to book an inter-island flight on my cards, using their website. It rejected two valid cards. When I got through

to a phone rep, I tried EVERY valid card I had, and their "system cannot validate" the cards!? The rep said this happens {sometimes?} with international cards. There was NO supervisor available to speak with, and no answer at their I.T. department.

Has anyone ELSE encountered this? I'm concerned now about hotels, and other businesses.

Thanks for some input.

I remember when my husband booked us ticket in Cebu Pacific for our flights in Boracay & Bohol, he successfully booked it but later on cebu pacific sent him an email that they need the photocopy of the credit card (AMEX) front and back, and his 2 valid ids. what he did scanned them all and sent to them. And there you go, we already have the tickets.

[CuriousGuy 0]

I remember when my husband booked us ticket in Cebu Pacific for our flights in Boracay & Bohol, he successfully booked it but later on cebu pacific sent him an email that they need the photocopy of the credit card (AMEX) front and back, and his 2 valid ids. what he did scanned them all and sent to them. And there you go, we already have the tickets.

I WISH they had given me the opportunity to do that, I would have gladly done so. Perhaps because it WAS an Amex card, which is one I don't have. Only Visa, MC, Discover.

I have e-mailed all of the details to a local travel agent, and she said that she was hopeful she could do so through her office in the RP.

Thanks all!