Preventing credit card declines when traveling overseas

If you travel outside of the United States to many “fraud prevalent” countries, you may encounter an issue with your credit card declining, and it has nothing to do with your credit limit. If you don’t know what to do about it you may find yourself without any credit. It’s important to understand the problem and how to both prevent and fix it.

Debit/credit card travel tips:

• To help reduce declines and prevent a “frozen” card account when on the go travelers should always contact the issuing bank before a trip departure and notify them of travel dates and locations.  This is best practice for your personal debit/credit cards as well as Vanderbilt One Cards.
• If you do ever experience a decline on your personal or Vanderbilt card account your first action should be to contact the issuing bank.  Their customer service number is usually printed on the back side of debit/credit cards.  Usually all it takes is for you to verify that you are the one attempting the charge and that it is not fraudulent.
• To prepare for these calls it is important to know your account information – billing address, phone number, and email linked to your account, spend limits, etc.

BNA Travel Alert: Heavy passenger volume expected June 10-12

With the departure of CMA Music Festival and Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival attendees, passengers departing from Nashville International Airport (BNA) should be prepared for heavy passenger volume and longer security screening lines, especially Sunday, June 10, through Tuesday, June 12.

BNA is anticipating record-breaking departing passenger numbers. Travelers are encouraged  to arrive at least two hours before scheduled flights.

Looking for Virgin America at BNA?

Virgin America merged with Alaska Airlines, so all Virgin America signage has been updated to reflect only the Alaska Airlines name at 29 airports across the country.

Beginning April 25, travelers began turning to Alaska for every step of their flights—from checking in to which gate to head to. Learn more here: http://bit.ly/2HwssHs 

Hotel Spotlight: Hilton Garden Inn

Located yards from Music Row and Vanderbilt, the Hilton Garden Inn Nashville Vanderbilt helps guests make the best of their time while visiting the city. With complimentary Wi-Fi, a business center and over 6,000 sq.ft. of meeting space, this property close to campus is ideal if you are visiting for business, leisure or both! Each room is also outfitted with Perfect Serta Sleepers®,  flat screen TV and hospitality center including: microwave, refrigerator and coffee maker.

Travelers can keep fit with workout in the fitness center or swimming laps in the indoor pool. The Garden Grille and Bar offers cooked to order breakfas, lunch or dinner. Travelers can keep in touch with complimentary internet access and free business center.

The Hilton Garden Inn Nashville Vanderbilt at 1715 Broadway Avenue in Nashville is offering Special Rates for the Vanderbilt University guest and visitors for the 2017-2018 season. Standard Rooms from $169.00 (blackout dates not included)

For booking, event questions, or to setup a site visit, please contact J.C. Timberlake at 615-523-7915.

Accessing Concur Travel

The SkyVU team has added a link to the Concur Travel online booking tool via the Oracle Cloud Navigator. Travelers can access the direct link to search for flights, hotel and car rental reservations.

Maymester Spotlight

As part of the ANTH 2114: Above and Below the Surface: The Caribbean between Climate Change and Tourism Maymester, students got certified in Scuba diving.

They learned about (and got certified in) both coral identification and measuring coral health. They adopted a coral tree (in an underwater coral nursery) and named it Cornelius.

Prof. Norbert Ross, A&S faculty leader of the program, was kind enough to share these photos.

@utilacoral #studyabroad #anchordownabroad #Maymester