Credit Card at Check In

[tonyl1956]

This is not quite a newbie question but I'm asking on behalf of some first time Azamara cruisers!

 

Last time we were on board (Quest Jan 2023), I used my Revolut card at check in and the process was fine. It's not a credit card but I had plenty of $ on it, as we were on a much longer trip, so had the money in $US while on the ship, swapping it to $NZ & $AUS as we went along. For those of us from the UK, many of the banks make significant charges if we use our ordinary cards abroad, either by using an unfavourable exchange rate or making individual transaction fees, or both!

 

This year, we are going again, but taking (slightly!) younger family members, who use similar cards when travelling. They may not have such a lot of spare cash to load up their card with $ and this trip is more or less just for the cruise, so in reality apart from a few € for incidental spending in ports, they shouldn't actually need much.

 

Wanting to avoid any issues at check in, does anyone know how much Azamara 'ring fence'? 

 

I would assume it's not a lot, as experience suggests they make an appropriate charge every time you spend anything anyway and I'm sure there would be a knock on the door pretty soon if your credit wasn't good!

 

Thanks in advance

 

Tony

[Riocca]

11 minutes ago, tonyl1956 said:

This is not quite a newbie question but I'm asking on behalf of some first time Azamara cruisers!

 

Last time we were on board (Quest Jan 2023), I used my Revolut card at check in and the process was fine. It's not a credit card but I had plenty of $ on it, as we were on a much longer trip, so had the money in $US while on the ship, swapping it to $NZ & $AUS as we went along. For those of us from the UK, many of the banks make significant charges if we use our ordinary cards abroad, either by using an unfavourable exchange rate or making individual transaction fees, or both!

 

This year, we are going again, but taking (slightly!) younger family members, who use similar cards when travelling. They may not have such a lot of spare cash to load up their card with $ and this trip is more or less just for the cruise, so in reality apart from a few € for incidental spending in ports, they shouldn't actually need much.

 

Wanting to avoid any issues at check in, does anyone know how much Azamara 'ring fence'? 

 

I would assume it's not a lot, as experience suggests they make an appropriate charge every time you spend anything anyway and I'm sure there would be a knock on the door pretty soon if your credit wasn't good!

 

Thanks in advance

 

Tony

On our recent cruises Azamara has tested the credit card with just $1 until there’s a debit balance on the onboard account when they will use the amount due. Payment isn’t taken until the cruise is over and the final invoice is issued.

We use the Halifax Clarity credit card for traveling as it offers currency conversion at the full Mastercard rate with no fees. As it’s a true credit card you don’t have to preload any money and it’s accepted everywhere Mastercards are accepted.

[tonyl1956]

4 minutes ago, Riocca said:

On our recent cruises Azamara has tested the credit card with just $1 until there’s a debit balance on the onboard account when they will use the amount due. Payment isn’t taken until the cruise is over and the final invoice is issued.

We use the Halifax Clarity credit card for traveling as it offers currency conversion at the full Mastercard rate with no fees. As it’s a true credit card you don’t have to preload any money and it’s accepted everywhere Mastercards are accepted.

Thanks for that. I thought it might be a few hundred or even a thousand.

 

I know there are cards around like Clarity but they seem to come and go in terms of fees, etc. I'll see what our kids have actually got and advise accordingly. 

 

 

[Riocca]

Only thing I would say is that Azamara did a test transaction at the end if every cruise week. So if there was for example $100 due at the end of the first week it appears in pending transactions and at the end of the second week there’s another $100 test transaction. Our cruise was 17 days so I could see 2 pending transactions on the card but these are cancelled before the final balance is taken. It then depends on how the card issuer handles these pending transactions, Halifax viewed it as the same transaction so only the larger of the two pending transactions was taken from the available balance. 
Hopefully I’ve explained that okay 😀

[Grandma Cruising]

We use the Halifax Clarity card too. It’s recommended by Martin Lewis/MoneySavingExpert. No card fees, no currency transaction fees and gives a very good rate of exchange.

[Rabidcruiser]

PLEASE NOTE - We travelled on Azamara Onward on March 1st 2024 from Sydney and the Halifax Clarity card was not recognised and was blocked causing much inconvenience and embarrassment. I have an ongoing complaint with Halifax getting them to explain why a $1 holding charge merited a fraud blockage - be warned -  it could happen to you as they will not say it could not happen again

[Grandma Cruising]

Our Halifax card was fine on Pursuit in Feb/March this year. We always have our Chase debit cards with us too as they charge no commission or exchange fees too.

Edited April 14 by Grandma Cruising

[tonyl1956]

I always travel with a back up card as well, though just occasionally, everything seems to fail. One filling station (automatic) in France refused all our cards in 2020, so we never bother stopping at Total Energie pumps now when driving through or around France.

 

As you point out, Rabidcruiser, a refusal at check-in would be a source of embarrassment, as well as annoyance.

 

Our banking arrangements are overdue for a review anyway. After 35 years of marriage, we still don't have a joint account, so maybe Halifax and Clarity would be the way to go for this.

[Riocca]

We’ve been using our Halifax Clarity card since 2015 and, touch wood, have never had a problem using it abroad. When we first had it you used to have to inform them where you were travelling but after a couple of years we were told that was no longer required.

Like all banks they use AI to monitor if transactions are out of the normal pattern, so I expect if a card is being used in Australia and they then see a small test transaction in the U.S. it rings alarm bells unless it’s within the normal pattern of the card. Fortunately Azamara transactions are within the normal pattern of use for our cards, however we always have our normal HSBC cards as a backup.

[Rabidcruiser]

After some 55 cruises (23 on Azamara) the Halifax card failure was more than a surprise for us. I also had an RBS ( Royal bank of Scotland ) mastercard card with us but that was new and had not even been activated by using as a chip and pin ( why not done on board) BUT surprisingly we managed to use this brand new card (without any special authority) for £750 deposit on Onward  for two future cruises!. The additional issue with Halifax is that they refuse to engage in discussion as to how they came to make such a ***** up of blockage and failure to communicate - both on the cruise and after. The reason for my post here was that when I spoke to Halifax post cruise they could not guarantee it would not happen again. It is evident that such cards can be used on Azamara successfully but I continue to press what exactly made this failure occur - sofar no explanation , apology or offer of compensation. If banks have become a law unto themselves ( aka the UK Post Office scandal) someone on high needs to set them straight!. Always carry at least TWO cards on holiday.  Ironically Halifax ( and other banks) now seem to think if you notify them where you are going they ignore  it as fraud could occur anyway. If it is AI they are using then saints preserve us! They still need to use due diligence like where was the card last used ( In this case - T4 LHR Hilton, Marriott Sydney, taxi Sydney were ALL passed then why not Azamara?)

[Riocca]

1 hour ago, Rabidcruiser said:

After some 55 cruises (23 on Azamara) the Halifax card failure was more than a surprise for us. I also had an RBS ( Royal bank of Scotland ) mastercard card with us but that was new and had not even been activated by using as a chip and pin ( why not done on board) BUT surprisingly we managed to use this brand new card (without any special authority) for £750 deposit on Onward  for two future cruises!. The additional issue with Halifax is that they refuse to engage in discussion as to how they came to make such a ***** up of blockage and failure to communicate - both on the cruise and after. The reason for my post here was that when I spoke to Halifax post cruise they could not guarantee it would not happen again. It is evident that such cards can be used on Azamara successfully but I continue to press what exactly made this failure occur - sofar no explanation , apology or offer of compensation. If banks have become a law unto themselves ( aka the UK Post Office scandal) someone on high needs to set them straight!. Always carry at least TWO cards on holiday.  Ironically Halifax ( and other banks) now seem to think if you notify them where you are going they ignore  it as fraud could occur anyway. If it is AI they are using then saints preserve us! They still need to use due diligence like where was the card last used ( In this case - T4 LHR Hilton, Marriott Sydney, taxi Sydney were ALL passed then why not Azamara?)

It’s the $1 US transaction after recent use in a different country that gets flagged by the fraud department, when I had a card compromised, thanks to a well known hotel booking site, it was flagged up because of a series of low cost transactions in Florida. The bank said this is what normally happens as the card is tested before being hit with the big one.

[Rabidcruiser]

Understood - BUT it evidently doesn't always happen as there are many cases of no problem on Azamara ships when Halifax card and others are used in Europe. Trouble is that if AI is being used and programmed for this then NO card is safe to use abroad!! As I commented - we need due diligence by fraud departments tracking immediate previous expenditure patterns. We cannot just rely upon this kind of speculative security reaction which NOT (always) in the customers interest but the banks!  Not everyone will carry smart phones and not always will banks contact you - as we experienced..We even signed authorities onboard Azamara to prove presence and even that was blocked. Halifax subsequent report even got the supposed suspicious site completely wrong as it could not be found on subsequent Internet searches. Still, be safe, carry spare cards.....