On his podcast, Clark Howard answers real reader questions on money, credit, debt, retirement, travel, and more, along with co-host Christa DiBiase.

Clark's answer: It used to be that as someone who travels internationally a lot, if I didn't file a manual travel alert with the card issuer, I’d get the unpleasant surprise of having my card declined abroad because I hadn’t warned them in advance. Today, card companies track so much of our data that a travel notice is generally no longer necessary. They can see right in your purchase history that you booked a hotel and bought an airline ticket, so they often know more about your plans than you can remember off the top of your head.

However, if you use multiple cards from different issuers, the other companies won't have that purchase history. While many card issuers now explicitly say they no longer require travel notices, others still want you to submit one. You can usually tell by logging into your account via the app or on a computer to see if the option is there. It is still better to be safe than sorry and set an alert so you don't have to worry about an unexpected decline while away.