Dealing with Loss and Deciding to Come Home

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November 11...somehow we were able to reach Visa, and Capital One, and my daughter, who then wired us $500, and we went to a tapas bar for dinner. Capital One stonewalled us totally, but ultimately promising to overnight a new credit card, which they did.

The new card was virtually useless inasmuch as it did not have a CHIP...all cards in Europe have chips...no one, BUT no one swipes, and NO ONE manually enters the numbers. The hotel patiently did try, and we were able to add one more night. Capital One said that to send us a fully functional chip card would take 10-20 days to reach Spain. Are you kidding us????

We replaced the French Simm card with our Verizon card to call US...you can just imagine how much that added up!!!

So we had to find a phone that was already set up to call the US...which turned out to be at the Barcelona Apple Store...staff helped us shut down our stolen computers, and handed us a phone to call the US. Took more than five hours on hold before Capital One FINALLY agreed to overnight a chip card to our daughter, who did receive it. She took front and back pictures, and we were able to get it into Apple Pay...so at least, we could use it to pay for most meals, most hotels, but not all gas stations.

You know those travel insurance ads? “So helpful in finding a doctor, making return arrangements, etc.?” Apparently, very helpful when sick and/or dying, not at all helpful in arranging for cash and credit cards. They emailed us a form to file for loss.

Relying on money from our daughter wasn‘t what we wanted to do for the next three weeks, so we looked at each other and said, “Guess that it is time to go home.”

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