Agree. Never been asked to show a credit card in thirty years of flying.

LondonElite, if some airline is mocking it's customers, then it would be better not to fly with it, I guess. Yeah, maybe I worried too much and I rushed to cancel the card, but other people will not lose money or their lives due to my mistakes. I'm not an airline official or a pilot, if you understand what I mean (I'm afraid you don't). I expect the people in the air business to be better prepared and much more informed, serious and responsible. It's their job. It's not my job to know everything about flying.

In my last comment, which you haven't read, I said that I don't want to complain or blame further. I just want a clear written answer from them that I will print and take with me. 2 seconds work. And that's it. No need for firther arguments.

Respectfully, you have unrealistic expectations. The checkout girl at the supermarket has no clue whether the pork you just bought was raised organically, and I wouldn't expect her to.

I would suggest that if this trip is life and death and it is causing you such extreme angst, why not just buy a new ticket using the new card? Will cost you more money, but your peace of mind will be restored.

The route I remember 100% is Copenhagen to Hamburg on a DB train, tickets always bought online at DB (self print). I have to show the credit card first on Danish soil where they merely look at it and check the last four digits. And then again on German soil where they actually scan the card.
As for the internal German routes, I seem to remember having to show my card but can't swear to it.
On the other hand I have two upcoming train trips: Berlin - Dresden and return.
On those it clearly says that the tickets are only valid for me personally together with the credit card. And that the ticket control will scan the card and the barcode of the tickets.

In over 4MM of flying in five continents, I've never been asked to show the credit card, but I don't fly LCCs. I've also never had to show the credit card on a train, but my experience with German trains is probably limited to about 25 trips.

BTW, if some airline or airport agent decides to demand something, having an email that this isn't the airline's policy is unlikely to help much.

Another data point: The last time (only time?) I've been asked to show a credit card was a Delta award flight in 2010. My Mom had booked an award ticket for me to fly ORD-JFK-CDG-XXX, and I was meeting up with her at JFK. They asked me for the credit card, which was my mother's and not in my possession. I explained that and they then tried to call her, which was fruitless since she was en route to JFK at the time. Within minutes they'd shrugged it off, tagged my baggage and sent me to the gate.

No European carrier has ever asked me for my credit card, nor have I been asked on any flight originating in Europe.

OP - you might want to request that a moderator move this thread to the FlyerTalk "Other European Airlines" forum (you can do this by clicking the goofy looking circle icon with a red exclamation point near the bottom left of your original post)

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/other...-airlines-469/

A quick search on that forum shows not a whole lot of Czech airlines activity in that forum, but there is some in the recent past. So there could be some folks with recent travel experiences on the airline who could speak to their check-in procedures, perhaps more likely to notice a specifically worded thread title about the airline, than here in Travel Buzz.

I'd also suggest when making that request, or apart from that if you decide to leave the thread here, that you ask the moderator to revise your thread title to something more specific and descriptive, such as "Czech Airlines - required to show CC at check in?" Again, you may slightly improve your chances that someone with experience on that carrier notices.

For the DB you can set up a identity document in the online profile. This can be a passport, drivers license, national ID card or some credit card (not necessarily the one you paid with). If you buy a ticket logged into the profile you have to produce that identity document.

If you just buy a ticket without being logged in they might want to see the card the ticket was paid with.

Anyway, traveling on the DB a couple of doZens time a year I had to show the card just once.

In that case, I would consider changing your CC provider. If your CC is checked unusually often, this might be due to the fact that the cards of your CC issuers are often used to fraudulently buy air tickets.

Again. Call centre employees are usually barely trained. With a little luck, a very comptent employee will answer your call, but very well informed call centre employees are certainly the exemption to the rule.

Expecting a airline call centre employee to know informations about the airline business is like expecting a car salesman to know detailed technical informations on the cars he sells.

I think the OPs expectations are even worse than this.

The OP would expect that he is shopping in Tescos but usually shops in Albertsons and is looking for twinkies which are in aisle 3 (as all grocery stores have exactly the same layout), not only are the Twinkies not in aisle 3 but they don't have twinkies at all and the checkout person (or even the store manager) has ever heard of Tescos selling Twinkies.

Just from the OPs posts its likely that he/she has heard the few times American airlines have checked up on credit card purchases at the airport. It doesn't happen elsewhere in the world.

It doesn't sound at all like you were ever mocked by the CS Agent - you insisted on knowledge of a procedure that allegedly takes place everywhere in the world (which it doesn't), the agent expressed surprise and denied knowledge of such procedure.

I'm sure the guy got frustrated when you kept pressing your case, but I highly doubt it was done in a mocking way.

No knowledge of procedure not their own =/= mocking customer


If all you want is confirmation from the airline that they don't need to see your CC during check-in, why not just call and ask nicely "do you need to see my CC during check in?" If they say yes, explain the situation and ask them how it can be resolved or if another form of ID will suffice. If they say no, ask nicely if they can give you that answer in writing.

Problem solved!

It certainly does - I have experienced it with Emirates. It's not universal however, and they appear to target countries where they deem there to be a higher risk of CC fraud.

OP. You are just not thinking straight. Please don't request your thread be transferred - it'll just open you up to more of the same from a new set of readers.

Good ideas, 84Fiero
Please follow the thread as it moves to the Other European Airlines forum.

Strong stats:

In 851 flights over the last 8 years, in 5 continents (none in Oceania, though), I was asked to show my CC twice (0.23%), both times by TK agents in ATH. On one of those I didn't have the CC with me, for reasons that are too long to explain here but which convinced the checkin agent and they let me fly to the US.

As for this present thread, if I were the OP I would try hard to worry less and to not get upset because an airline employee and a bunch of FTers don't share the worries: you significantly increase the risk of a heart attack! Believe me, I know exactly what I'm talking about...