Which means your plastic money works only if/when the card issuer wants it to.
Banks will be closed on Christmas and New Year’s. It may be a good idea to keep enough cash on hand to pay for essentials like food and gas, because your credit or debit card might not work. Card issuers don’t trust retailers’ security and are trying to prevent fraud during this holiday shopping season by restricting cards, blocking transactions and, in some cases, canceling cards.
If you’ve gone cashless and think of your plastic as money, you may be in for a surprise at the checkout register, gas pump, or when trying to order something online. Forewarned is forearmed. This is a public service announcement for readers of this blog.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102294071
Except they don’t celebrate Christmas widely in the places where banks answer the phone.