European Vacation

British Columbia’s Majid Khoury loves crossing the Atlantic once or twice a year to visit Europe and the Middle East, exploring out-of-the-way places that are below the radar of most tourists.

These excursions offer piquant snapshots in time. “I was in Grenada, in the south of Spain, sitting on a hilltop patio, with the whole town spread out before me,” Khoury reminisces. “Another time, I was in a cemetery in downtown Munich. It was like a park, with people relaxing on benches or walking their dogs. It was a serene and calm oasis in the middle of this hopping German city,” says Khoury, a BC credit union member who switched from a bank several years ago.

Khoury relies upon his credit union Member Card® debit card during these international jaunts. He happily reports the card has been trouble-free in every European city visited, dispensing cash at almost every ATM. Khoury was initially tentative, however, about the card’s dependability in Beit Meri, a 3,000-strong, isolated mountain village in Lebanon that is home to his parents, George and Samia Khoury. As a precaution, he took cash along just in case his new Member Card® debit card wasn’t accepted at the town’s few ATM outlets. He needn’t have worried. “It worked brilliantly,” says Khoury, senior vice-president of Ipsos ASI, a global advertising research firm.

One incident that could have caused chaos in his travels was deftly stick-handled by his credit union, Khoury recalls. While he was in Lebanon, a credit union representative called Khoury on his cell phone to report that someone may have had fraudulent access to his Member Card® debit card. The rep went through all of Khoury’s transactions over the telephone, and arranged to have a new card waiting for him when he returned home.

“I’ve had nothing but pleasant experiences,” he adds. “My colleagues call me a walking billboard for credit unions and my Member Card® debit card.”

®MEMBER CARD is a registered trademark of Credit Union Central of Canada and used under license.

Added on May 16th, 2007

View More NDCU News