Having multiple cards would too (I have a debit card and two credit cards, kept at home, but I don't want to be stuck with no money if my wallet/phone gets stolen)
I have no idea why a university which had received multiple on time payments would suddenly drop someone off the role for paying a few days late (especially with a reasonable excuse like "my bank put my account on hold")
The $200 would've helped guarantee food and gas, it wouldn't cover shelter, i was studying in California, the cheapest hotel was $130~ a night. I also tried explaining the situation to the university, but unfortunately you are considered a current student only if you paid your tuition.
There were also programs to help students in crisis (provide them with place to stay, food) but its only available to students who paid the tuition.
PS: As of that situation happening, now i have 6+ accounts with different banks, emergency cash, I do not want it ever happening to me again.
Ha. The same problem applies there too, and burned me at some random gas station in the middle of nowhere on the way to Spokane--8pm at night on a Friday--the bank raised a fraud alert on my credit card. The customer service agent said I had to talk to Fraud, who wasn't in until Monday. There were no hotels (not that I could pay for one of those either), nor any other customers to beg for change. We had to buy gas with change found in the seats and a miraculous disbursement of pity from the attendant. (This was an account with some no-name issuer, possibly Credit One. Only American Express and Capital One have ever been reliable for me in travel.)
Separate incident before that related to poor credit on my part at the time, but the issuer reduced my credit limit on a credit account without my knowledge.
You can't trust anything in the "cloud" will be there when you need it. Rather than hoarding gold or traveling with large amounts of cash (welcome back, literal highway robbery) the meddling to protect themselves needs to stop. Every bank is becoming PayPal.
Please refer to the FAQ from the university i was studying at. #10 to be exact https://sbs.fullerton.edu/about/FAQs.php I was late to pay the tuiton, only because the bank account was suddenly frozen, on a long weekend.
This is the program i was talking about, you can review the eligibility, which states that the student must be currently enrolled. https://www.fullerton.edu/basic-needs/
But cash can't be used for lots of things, even though legally it needs to be accepted anywhere. I can't imagine it would be easy to pay your $6,000 school tuition with a stack of $20 bills. You might be able to get a hotel room if you paid a hefty deposit on top of what the room actually cost, but you'd be just as likely to run into some 20 year old desk agent who can't be bothered to find the form for that, if it even exists.
