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Thursday, November 15, 2007

How to protect yourself if you “lose it” (lost passports, credit cards or other travel difficulties)

“My ATM card won’t work! / I lost my credit card! / I can’t find my passport!” HoneyLuna friends and clients share their stories....

A good friend of mine was in Berlin and didn’t feel her room / hotel was “safe” enough to leave her passport. Rather than either carrying it with her (money belts are your best bet!) or leave it a safe at the hotel front desk, she decided to hide it. Thinking no one would be gross enough to dig in her bag of dirty laundry, she stashed the passport in the bottom of the smelly bag and went off sightseeing.

A few days later she had an early flight home and as the hotel buzzed her to let her know her driver was waiting, she realized she didn’t have her passport. She looked in her room safe, under the bed, in the closet – everywhere!! Still no passport. Panicked and with no passport, she had to send the driver on her way thinking she either lost her passport or it was stolen. She missed her flight and spent her day at the US Embassy getting a new passport and flew home the next day.

Tired and weary after a long flight home and the stress of the “lost” passport, she arrived home and dumped the contents of her suitcase on her bed – including the dirty underwear bag – and… found her passport!

This story has many important points:

First of all, never leave important documents in your room. Either carry them ON you (not in a back pack or fanny pack) or stash them with the hotel’s safe at the front desk. The only truly “safe” place is the hotel’s front desk safe. Hotels will not accept responsibility for items lost or stolen from your room – or your room’s safe. I once read an Ombudsman piece in a travel magazine where the entire safe had been cut out of the wall in a hotel room and all contents were stolen. Because it was a safe in the room, the hotel would not accept any liability or replace the contents.

Secondly, always carry copies of your important travel documents with you (separate from the originals!) And, to be extra safe, leave a copy with someone at home as well. This will come in handy and can save lots of headaches if you have the misfortune of losing something while you are traveling. Photocopies cannot replace the originals, but are extremely useful to provide important and necessary information to whoever needs to replace the documents.

I had some HoneyLuna honeymoon registry clients who inadvertently threw out their paper tickets on their honeymoon in China. While the airline was trying to accommodate them and get them home (on the same flight even), the airline could not find a copy of their airline records! If the clients had only had a copy of the tickets, the airlines could have easily found their records from the ticket number. However, because they couldn’t find the record, my clients missed their flight and were forced to spend an extra night. They finally reached me at the travel agency the next day and I faxed a copy of the tickets to the airline, which then found the record, re-issued the tickets and sent my clients home.

It is important to note that this particular airline was very accommodating. They did NOT have to re-issue those tickets. In fact, most airlines will make you buy a new ticket home (often costing thousands of dollars) and then you must file for a lost ticket refund – which can takes months to receive. Although many airlines have gone to ticket less travel, there are still quite a few airlines that issue paper tickets. If your tickets are paper tickets (and yes, paper tickets do still exist) make copies!! Actually, make copies of your e-ticket receipts as well.

Another “must do” is to call your credit card companies and advise them if you will be traveling and / or making a larger number of purchases than usual. One of our HoneyLuna honeymoon registry clients went to Disneyland on their honeymoon and wrote:

“After a wonderful honeymoon night, we had breakfast at the hotel restaurant in preparation for our first day at Disneyland. When we were finished and ready to head off on our Disney adventures, I gave the waitress my credit card. She came back with it, saying it had been cancelled! We used another card instead, but I was a bit freaked out because I knew there was plenty of money in my account and it shouldn’t have been cancelled. We immediately went back to the room and I called my bank. They said they cancelled it because several out of state charges had been made on my account and they thought someone had stolen my card. I assured them that I was the one that had made those charges because I was in California on my honeymoon! I was told to let my bank know the next time I went on a trip so that this would not happen again. Maybe other people already know this, but I didn’t. So it was quickly resolved, but the last thing I expected to be doing on my honeymoon was talking to my bank!”

In addition to talking to your bank in advance, take a back up credit card or debit card with you as well. On one of my own trips to Spain, my husband and I put all our spending money in my checking account that had a debit card attached to it. My card worked fine on the first day but then somehow became de-magnetized. It no longer worked in any of the ATMs in Barcelona. Since this was the account with all of our money in it we were in a bit of bind. I called our bank and after over an hour of international calls, we were able to transfer the money from my account, to our joint account and then to my husband’s account so we could use his card instead.

Also, it’s a good idea to check with your credit card company beforehand how they “treat” you if you do lose a card while traveling. On a recent trip in Austria a HoneyLuna employee lost their credit cards. They called to cancel their cards – one credit card company cancelled their card and sent a new card to their hotel via Fed Ex so that they received it the next day. The other credit card company cancelled their card and sent them a new card a few weeks after they had returned home. They immediately called and cancelled that card!

In these days of the internet, we can access much of our important information from anywhere in the world. But you may NOT be able to get to the internet, or for whatever reason might not be able to access your accounts. As such, do err on the side of caution and have old fashioned back up of all your important documents and information - photocopies!

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