The airline charge won't tell them where you are going... My banks have an online tool to inform them of travel plans.

Sure, but back then it was an expensive international phone call to be on hold for 15 minutes and then talk to a person who said: your card was used overseas, looked suspicious.

They are costing me money to protect themselves.

A good heuristic might be that I spent 2000AUD on Qantas a couple of months ago.

And yeah, their ads showed people on the other side of the world using their cards. No mention of this sort of stuff.

I’m not sure that’s true. My credit card statements usually show the route (and maybe the date; I don’t recall) for airfare purchases. The format the statements use has led me to believe it’s more than the airline stuffing that data in the generic string that all transactions have.