I used to pay $$ for everything - now I put it on my CC and just pay the bill at the end of the month...once I check every charge. I've had several entries which weren't mine and the company promptly corrected it for me when I called them. My card is tied to earning AA air miles and we receive several round-trip tickets annually from it + no service charges because we pay our bill in total when it comes in by direct bank transfer.
I had my CC info swiped when traveling in Spain to go run with the bulls a couple of years ago. Typically they'll hold the info 4-6 months and then sell it to a broker on the open market who resells it to some other crook to use. We'd been back in Texas around 5 months when my CC company called one Saturday afternoon to tell me that they had some strange activity on my card - it was being used in Dallas and SoCal at the same time. I told them I was using it in Dallas and the other was a fraud. They took care of it right away, there were no charges, and new cards were issued the next day (our bank is open 7 days a week).
A word of advice - now, when we travel overseas, we take a new card out from our bank solely for the trip and then cancel it immediately upon our return. This prevents the info from being used later if it's been swiped and resold. Once bit, twice shy.
Richard's $.02
