Years ago, someone at the bank suggested we call the CC security department when traveling. This has saved us numerous hours of grief. We just tell them, we are going to XX for this time frame, and it saves the hassle of the phone calls and blocks for the activity. Esp since we never use ours except for travel. I also get a new card/account number when we return: too many of the places we go hand write the numbers down for transactions.

You are pretty well protected against theft with most bank credit cards as long as you report the activity right away or as soon as you see it on your statement. It's debit cards that have issues.