Even that isn't a guarantee- I'm traveling in Japan right now and everyone I'm traveling with except myself have had issues, despite filing travel notices well in advance.

What kind of issues? It could be some sort of communication problems, rather than rejections by your bank. Or, maybe, a local bank rejecting your card for their own reasons (I don't really know how this works).

I was visiting Philippines recently, and wasn't able to withdraw cash - the ATMs (I've tried different banks' ones) were rejecting me with a generic error message. So I've contacted my bank to check what's wrong and if they're blocking me for any reason. Turned out that they haven't seen any transaction attempts at all - like something along the path wasn't working (no clue, really). The suggested method of trying an ATM in a different part of the city worked.

I've also had issues with some payments via PoS terminals. Normally, when payment fails I get a push notification about the failure - but none happened at those times. So, I guess, this could be similar.

Nope, actual rejections that had to be called in and confirmed.

I've never had problems not posting notice on my trips to Canada but I didn't feel brave enough to try transacting in Japan without notifying first... Still, I wonder with the prevalence of chip readers, isn't the "card is present" signal much stronger? So unless they think I've had my card stolen and haven't bothered to report it yet they probably shouldn't stop any card-present transactions.

(Having had an EMV chip card for about 15 years.)

The banks still advise customers to inform them when travelling, but I've not found that to be necessary when in countries with chip and PIN. (If I'm going outside Europe I will inform the bank of my main card, but in South America, Asia, Africa there will be some point where it isn't accepted, and I use a backup card -- that bank doesn't know I'm travelling.)

The USA used to be the problem -- about once a year, someone in the office would get a robot phone call from the bank saying their card had just been blocked due to suspect activity in the USA. That should be becoming a lot less common.

Chip transactions are indeed a huge signal - a chip transaction can’t be faked due to strong cryptography. Granted, the card can still be stolen, but it’s rare enough that most banks let it though.

I feel like if my card gets stolen and I don't notice before it gets to Japan and starts spending money, I have bigger issues.

Magstrip cards can be cloned very easily. You might still have your card, but maybe someone copied the data off it last week. The chip is a different story.

> a chip transaction can’t be faked due to strong cryptography.

There is always a defcon pwn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JABJlvrZWbY

I don't know why but I kind of expected with all the hubbub from Europeans about how chips rule they would have some sort of anti-tampering / tamper-evident features to them... Next thing you're going to tell me you can extract the private key from one without much effort...?

Of course you can but i wasnt writing about that.

The ide behind chip is that transaction result is written back to your card, something mag stripe cannot do. I had a family related fraud where my son used my card in store to buy few video games. Over the phone amex told me to go to the bank which was able to show me this card has been swiped physically in the store because confirmation hashes were written on the chip of my card.

I was explained up to 16777264 transaction hashes can be written on one chip before overwrite process starts.

So at this point you wont get your loeny back if you have your card present but claim someone made copy because they will simply pull data off the card.

Side issue Europe switched to touch credit cards some 3 years ago. Its insane fast yoy dont even touch reader you just wand your card transaction approved. You will need another 5-8 years to wait for that in usa tho.