My bank has done the same in the past, but now the offer an interface in online banking to inform them when I'm travelling.
It still annoys me though: Their fraud system keeps flagging regular transactions that I've done for similar amounts to the same companies, at the same times of month or year for years, yet when someone did two transfers of 3000 GBP each to a credit card account in a different bank that I've never dealt with before, in someone elses name, their fraud system did not trigger...
From my perspective, their blocks are nothing but a nuisance.
That would be counterintuitive. I always inform my bank before traveling out of the country. They want to know the destination nation and a date range, which is necessary to avoid triggering red flags when "card present" transactions start showing up from an unexpected location.
It still annoys me though: Their fraud system keeps flagging regular transactions that I've done for similar amounts to the same companies, at the same times of month or year for years, yet when someone did two transfers of 3000 GBP each to a credit card account in a different bank that I've never dealt with before, in someone elses name, their fraud system did not trigger...
From my perspective, their blocks are nothing but a nuisance.