nexusCFX

It applies to merchants that require mandatory 2FA for VbV which Chase doesn't support. If you have an AMEX you may have seen something similar in the past where sometimes it will just let you through based on their fraud detection, etc, and other times it requires sending you a code. I've never hit the 2FA with an airline either but almost every e-commerce site I've dealt with in Asia that uses VbV has this problem.

@paperwastage gave a good example. It is impossible to add a Chase Visa to GrabPay without calling their VbV team to allow it.

joe_miami

In other words, one won't "almost always" have a Chase card declined online in Asia.

I can imagine buying a TV online is more of an ordeal in Asia than buying a plane ticket, but most people here are more concerned with the latter. (Not looking for a big battle. Just don't want Chase cardholders to get the idea their cards are hard to use in Asia.)

A lot of the "card failures" in Asia are merchants who don't want to take CCs, especially for small purchases.

nexusCFX

Most merchants in Asia do require the 2FA so it will fail. Grab is the biggest ride share service in Asia; they ate Uber alive. If you couldn't add your Chase card to Uber without calling a 1-800 number I think you'd agree that'd be a pretty big deal on it's own and that's just one merchant.

The plane tickets are a small sample as I suspect you did not book 18 tickets on 18 different airlines; more likely only a small number of airlines so it's really only a few data points. If plane tickets comprise the majority of your online card usage at VbV merchants that's great for you but it doesn't help those of us with more varied purchasing and whether or not people on FT are mostly purchasing airline tickets is questionable given the varied community here, but I do agree with you that in that area it is generally not a problem or at least hasn't been one for me.

I'm surprised someone booking 18 flights in Asia and staying there for six weeks never used Grab a single time; you would have run into this. In any case, you are absolutely correct that for airline purchases the VbV thing is not really an issue; I have never encountered it for plane tickets. However, in the grand scheme of online purchases with VbV which is the original point that was raised, a Chase card will fail most of the time. Just some examples off the top of my head are the previously mentioned Grab, Mandarake, CDJapan, Vatican tickets (this one in particular has a lot of complaints online), and one of the European rail services which I want to say was SNCF but it was so long ago that I cannot remember.

FWIW I still like my CSR despite this, but I've just started pulling out an AMEX in these cases because their 3-D Secure always works.

lsquare

I don't know what Chase did, but now I'm able to add my Chase Visas to my Grab account. Unfortunately I left Malaysia and am now in Bangkok, Thailand. I'll try to test Grab in Malaysia the next time I return to KL. I used Grab from BKK to my hotel.

Thx guys for the help and Chase seriously needs to address this sooner rather than later.

tmiw

I'll admit that I have limited experience with VbV and foreign websites, but I seem to recall that my CSR has basically worked every time to date (obviously without needing to enter any additional details). However, I have had issues with my other Chase cards (one being a Freedom issued quite a while ago and the other being a CSP product changed to CFU). In any case, it's definitely YMMV.

paperwastage

I guess my post should be reworded.. just a note/warning that Chase will possibly get declined, while I had zero issues with boa

(For online/card-not-present transactions in this region)

Happy that boa and Chase are moving towards contactless - usually I get the "signature required" receipt when using chip (boa does support chip+pin , but it's the lowest priority). With contactless(card or via mobile pay), don't need signature under a certain $ limit (country dependent)

joe_miami

I used Grab extensively in Asia and added/used my CSR with no phone calls necessary. At best, your claims here are out of date.

As I said, I can imagine that e-commerce security for purchases might be tighter than for things like plane and bus tickets, where the person's ID is going to be checked at the airport or bus station, but here at FlyerTalk, most people are more concerned with travel-related expenses than online purchases.

nexusCFX

Out of date? Well, I guess if you consider being unable to add a CSR to Grab due to VbV failure a whole one week ago which required me to use my AMEX to be out of date.


Amusingly, there is also a thread about this exact issue also from about a week ago Chase Visas and Grab app?

Three people in this thread have reported issues like this, and I've linked several threads about the same issue, along with easily searchable examples you could put into Google which produce results from five years ago all the way through to today, but you insist there's no way such an issue exists because you have personally not experienced it for unknown reasons. Again, that's great for you. Many people have these problems, I think the evidence that has been provided by myself and others for that is pretty comprehensive so I'm not going to bother continuing this discussion. However, if you have any ideas as to why you seem immune to this, I'm sure myself and others in this thread Always stuck in the Verified by Visa when purchase ticket....Any solution?? would love a solution.

joe_miami

I don't know why you keep carrying on like this. Your problem and some five-year-old (!!) threads don't translate into Chase cards being useless in Asia, particularly for travelers.

foodcrazyboy

Had the same issue in Penang last week. CSR added just fine in the grab app when I was Singapore but the moment i landed in Malaysia, I wasn't able to add CSR in the app (VbV screen appeared but no number to call). I gave up and just linked my paypal acct instead...

lsquare

Will it code as travel if you use CSR linked with PayPal?

paperwastage

the last time chase CSR worked in grab, it coded as travel in malaysia but nontravel in singapore. same app/phone/card, card wasnt removed&readded

malayisa posted as "GRAB ECOM SSL-EC", Travel category 3x
singapore posted as "Grab", Personal category 1x

ymmv again

baroqen

This can happen with any credit card in Asia and has happened to me a number of times with my Citi Prestige card. It hasn't actually happened to me with any Chase cards yet, but it's just a matter of time. The issues have generally been spotty. At one point, I was getting my Citi card rejected 3 out of 4 times, but it eventually cleared up after a couple of months. No problems for literally YEARS prior... just a sudden glitch that lasted a couple of months.

The issue was weird enough that the same retailer could sometimes process the card using a different machine. One thing I did notice is that all of the machines that my card failed on were from the same bank... but not all machines would cause the fail....

I've also had occasional failures due to system maintenance type issues. When you're in Asia, your bank might be doing routine system maintenance when you're trying to use your card. This is an assumption, but there have been times that I've called the bank after a failed transaction and been unable to access certain automated functions.

alocsin

Never happened to me with my Chase cards nor my Schwab ATM card in 20 years of going to Penang every year..

Except, last year, my Schwab ATM card kept getting blocked after one use. And I had to keep calling Schwab to get it unblocked --- despite having given them travel notices via email and phone previously. It was a royal pain because we needed the money for Chinese Red Packets. They said it was a new security measure instituted last year due to the high incidence of fraud in Malaysia.

After going through the process over several days, I said that I was moving all of our family assets out of Schwab the minute I got back home. They finally put some sort of special notice on my card to prevent the block and gifted me $300 for my troubles.

I'm probably going to make $300 again on this year's trip

alocsin

I spoke too soon.

I am currently in Penang, Malaysia, for just under three weeks. Our Chase Sapphire Preferred cards are being declined most of the time. My Chase United Explorer card has also been declined all the time.

Seems to happen 100% with stores that use a newer touchscreen hand-held credit card processor but also happens with the older push-button hand-held processor. The only successes, so far, have been with the older push-button hand-held processor.