My recent trip to Europe taught me many things. First, I must learn to speak Italian, because I love Italy enough to live there. Next, I must continue to amass as many miles and points as I possibly can in order to travel in comfort. And finally, it is a really bad idea to only travel with only one credit card.

Both MrsMJ and I dutifully called Citibank, Chase, and our Bank to let them know we were taking an extensive international trip, and intended to make some purchases while we were away, and purchase, we did. Mostly meals, souvenirs, and other incidentals. MrsMJ purchased couple of items right after we landed in Rome using her Hilton HHonors Reserve Visa, and these transactions processed just fine using a chip card reader. Our first snag was at the train station, where the kiosk would not accept my Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa. Turning to my Marriott Rewards Premier Visa, with Chip & Signature, my train ticket purchase went though with no issues. Missing out on Ultimate Rewards points makes me sad, but I’m not one for turning down Marriott Rewards points either.

With that, we were off to Rome, Florence, Venice, and our 14-night cruise aboard Celebrity Reflection. In most cases, merchants and restaurants we dealt with were well equipped to accept swipe cards and chip cards. In a few cases, only a chip card reader was visible and used. An important port of call for us was Kusadasi, Turkey. Not only because we were taking a private tour of the ancient city of Ephesus, but we also intended to purchase a new carpet for our dining room now that we are old enough to graduate from our IKEA dining room set.

We returned to the same vendor we purchased from last time, Topkapi, and sat through the usual carpet presentation. There was tea, Turkish coffee, snacks, and Turkish wine. Our guide recommended that I not drink any wine until we had made a purchase. I explained that my having a clear head was irrelevant in this case, as MrsMJ is in charge of all major purchases of home furnishings, so bring on the wine. After settling on the perfect carpet, MrsMJ presented her Hilton HHonors Reserve Visa to make the purchase. Her card was inserted into the chip reader and the response was “Transaction Denied – Call Bank.” Thankfully, Topkapi made the call for us and handed the phone to MrsMJ, because the call took entirely too long, included far too many instances of being placed on hold, and best of all, MrsMJ could hardly hear the Citibank representative. After going through the usual spiel of questions, the end result was that Citibank would not approve the purchase even though it was significantly below the amount of available credit, and we had called to tell them we would be making such a purchase before we left. Citi told MrsMJ that she would need to go into a Citibank branch with the card and photo ID in order to have the purchase approved. This was obviously not an option at the moment.

Much to my chagrin, MrsMJ turned to her longtime card, the Royal Caribbean Visa issued by Bank of America, which immediately approved the purchase. Maybe I should not have been so focused on being entertained with wine and snacks afterall, or I would have handed over my Sapphire Preferred Card for the purchase! Heck, I would have settled for some Membership Rewards points with my Amex Platinum (which also earns us some cruise benefits)! This would also have been an ideal way to meet the minimum spend requirements on the Chase Ink Bold Business Card which is currently offering 50,000 Ultimate Rewards bonus points when you make $5,000 dollars in purchases during the first 3 months of opening the card account. In other words, we could have been that much closer to another premium class roundtrip to Europe like the one I reported on here.

In the end, everything worked out. We got our carpet, and enough Royal points for a few bucks of onboard credit for our next Royal Caribbean cruise. Would I rather have Ultimate Rewards points or Membership Rewards points? Sure. The real lesson here is that it is a bad idea to put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to credit cards. Even if you do your duty, and call your card company to let them know you are traveling, there is a small risk that you might run into the difficulty that we did. Do not travel with just one card!

LINK: Ink Bold® Business Card

LINK: Chase Sapphire Preferred℠

LINK: Marriott Rewards® Premier Credit Card

LINK: Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Reserve Card 

LINK: The Platinum Card® from American Express

Disclosure: If you apply for and receive a credit card through the links provided in this post (with the exception of the Royal Caribbean Visa), I will receive a referral bonus. As always, I appreciate your readership whether you use my links or not.

Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by American Express. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of American Express, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by American Express. This site may be compensated through American Express Affiliate Program.

I recently received a question from a reader on credit cards. I offered my advice. Feel free to comment if you would have offered different advice.

Reader: “I am new to the apporama game and would like to do my first one. I am planning a trip in november with my wife and 3 kids to Europe. I would like to pay with points for as much as possible. Do you have any suggestions for me on what cards to get? I have a Amex Gold bz card that I got in Nov of last year and have about 220000 points on it. I also have a Citi AAdvantage Platinum MasterCard that I applied for in early March of 2012 with a balance of 60000 miles. I have a decent credit score with my lowest being 730. I also live in New Orleans so I have pretty good airport to fly from. Another thing you might want to know is that I own a small biz with about $30000 month spend that I currently put on my Amex.”

MJonTravel: “Well, there are a few ways to do this. You could transfer your Membership Rewards points to either FlyingBlue or SkyMiles and book travel on either Air France or Delta. I found some availability at the 75,000 mile level in Economy on random dates in November using delta.com on either Delta or Delta and Air France (connecting in Atlanta) between New Orleans and Paris. You’ll collect enough Membership Rewards points at your current charge rate to get most of your family to Europe. Granted, we didn’t discuss where you would like to go in Europe.

Now, you mentioned applying for some other cards. I have 2 cards in mind and I think they will allow you to leverage the bonuses you might earn from them and the Membership Rewards points you already have in a better way. I would consider applying for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card for your personal card, and the Chase Ink Card for business expenses. Key benefits: With the Sapphire Preferred Card, you will receive 40,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards points if you spend $3,000 dollars in the first 3 months after account opening. You earn 2x UR points for travel and dining charges, 1x points for everything else. The Ink card offers a 50,000 Ultimate Rewards point bonus. You get 25,000 bonus points with your first charge and 25,000 more points if you spend $10,000 dollars in the first 3 months. Based on your business charges, that won’t be a problem for you. Further, you earn 5x bonus points for Ink card charges at office supply stores, cell phone charges, landline phone,internet and cable TV service. You get 2x points for gas station and hotel charges.

The beauty of Ultimate Rewards points is that they can transfer to British Airways 1 for 1…..and so can your Membership Rewards points. Let’s assume for a second that you get the full bonus for Ink…and you get a Sapphire Preferred Card…. That’s 90,000 UR points right away, not counting what you earn from your routine charging. Perhaps your spouse could even obtain a Sapphire Preferred Card too…..another 40,000 points. You could transfer your points to British Airways and book travel on BA or their Oneworld partner American Airlines, both of which tend to have pretty good award availability, though be advised that BA does charge fuel surcharges on award travel which can amount to several hundred dollars per ticket.

This is probably what I would do if I were in your situation…..but I have to advise that I’m not a banker or financial planner, and only you can know what you can handle with credit cards. I’m going to include links to the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, and the Chase Ink card with Ultimate Rewards. Please be advised that if you apply for and receive a credit card through these links, I will receive a commission. You are absolutely under no obligation to use these links, and if you have received a better offer for the same cards through another method, please use the offer that provides the most benefits to you.”

What do you think of my advice, and what would you have said differently? Comments welcome.

Disclosure: If you apply for and receive a credit card through the links above, I will receive a commission.