Here is what I do. I have a generic e-mail message that I send to all of my credit card issuers advising them of my upcoming travel. It is set up as a bulk mail that includes American Express, Visa, MasterCard, and Diners Club. All I do is change the dates for travel before hitting the send button. It takes all of about 15 seconds to do this, and is actually less effort than it takes to make this post.

The expense of credit card fraud is indeed born by all of us. As a result, I consider the minimal effort worth it. Once a track record is set whereby you always inform the credit card companies before traveling, then hopefully it will make it a lot easier for the credit card companies to raise an appropriate red flag, since the companies would not have been alerted beforehand.