If life takes Visa, and Mastercard covers everything except those priceless moments money can’t buy, then all I need to enjoy my trip overseas is my credit card, right? Not necessarily, as some Americans have found during trips abroad over the past few years by getting stuck in train stations or embarrassed in restaurants and shops when their credit cards are declined. This can happen even when travelers take the recommended precautions, like making sure their accounts are in good standing and contacting their card issuer before the trip to make sure fraud detection safeguards aren’t activated by the first overseas purchase.

"Would you like to save 10% on your purchase today?" You're going to hear this question a lot this holiday season, so avoid the awkward silence and be prepared with a quick comeback to throw the cashier off guard.  Here are 5 of my top favorites:

Update: This offer is no longer available.

I reviewed the Citi Diamond Preferred Card last week because they're running a special holiday promotion that offers $200 cash back after you spend $500 online during the first 3 months.  While this a great sign-up bonus, I personally wouldn't use the card for anything more than scoring a free $200 on Cyber Monday. Beyond the $200 cash back, it doesn't offer any rewards program and is really more of a balance transfer credit card due to its long 0% interest period.  Since I never carry credit card balances and am a self-professed rewards junkie, that makes the card pretty much worthless to me in the long run.  Many of you may feel the same.

Many of us, myself included, took advantage of the British Airways Card 100,000 mile promotion earlier this year. What we soon found out was that rewards flights from North America to Europe on British Airways carried hefty fuel surcharges of $500 or more! Our dreams of jaunting to Paris in 2012 courtesy of BA quickly faded. Effective tomorrow, British Airways Executive Club miles will be replaced by Avios points, which has a lot of cardholders even more concerned about the future value of their miles. Unfortunately, no one knows exactly what the new rewards program will entail because British Airways has refused to release any details.

The 50,000 point signup bonus for the Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Card is unfortunately flying away just as fast as it flew in last month. I doubt the promotion is getting the axe due to lack of popularity.  In fact, my guess is this card offer has been extremely popular among the millions of consumers searching for ways to bring down the cost of their holiday travel this year.  It's difficult to turn down over $800 in free money for travel, even if there is a $69 annual fee attached to the card!