Quick answer: Connecting your wallet takes about 30 seconds. Your bank password never reaches us. We see which cards you have and what you spend on them, so the app can recommend cards and trips that fit YOU. You can unconnect any time, and a single button wipes everything we’ve ever seen.

If you’ve been using Travel Diari as a card catalog, connecting your wallet is the upgrade that makes it personal. Your recommendations stop being generic and start matching how you actually spend. This post walks through the 30-second setup, what we can and can’t see, and how to unconnect if you ever want to.

Essential tools and reference links

Before connecting, bookmark these. Each one is something you may want during setup or later if you ever decide to revoke.

🏠 Travel Diari

The Cards page is where the Plaid Connect button lives. Sign in, scroll to the “Connect any major bank” section, and click Connect.

🔐 Plaid Safety & Data Privacy

Plaid’s official explainer of what they see, how they protect it, and the regulatory framework they operate under. Worth a five-minute read before you connect.

🛂 Plaid Portal

Your independent control panel for every app you’ve ever connected via Plaid. You can revoke Travel Diari (or any other app) from here without logging into us.

📜 Travel Diari Privacy Policy

The canonical list of what we collect, how long we keep it, who we share it with, and how you can request deletion.

💳 AwardWallet

If you’d rather not connect a bank, AwardWallet syncs loyalty balances directly from issuer accounts. Travel Diari’s Card Coach is more accurate with Plaid, but AwardWallet plus manual card entry is a workable alternative.

What we can see and what we can’t

This is the part most people want spelled out before clicking Connect.

Can we see this?	Answer
Your bank password	No. You type it into your bank’s own login page (or Plaid’s). It never reaches us.
Your account or routing numbers	No. We don’t ask for them.
Ability to move money in or out	No. We have a read-only view.
Which credit cards you have	Yes. So we can map them to the right rewards.
Where you swipe (merchant, amount, date)	Yes. So your card recommendations are based on how you actually spend.
Your bank balance	No. We don’t ask for it and we don’t need it.

Your bank credentials go from your browser straight to Plaid (a regulated bank-data company that already powers Venmo, Robinhood, and most financial apps you use). Plaid hands us back a single revocable key that only works for reading the data above. We store that key encrypted. Nothing else.

The 30-second setup walkthrough

Plaid access is gated for Pro subscribers and select demo accounts. If you don’t see the Connect button on the Cards page, ping support and we’ll enable it. Once you can see the button, this is the entire flow.

Sign in and open the Cards page. The “Connect any major bank” button is at the top.
Click Connect. A pop-up from Plaid opens.
Pick your bank. Plaid supports just about every US bank and credit card issuer.
Sign in to your bank. You’ll log in just like you do on your bank’s website.
Pick which accounts to share. We only need your credit cards – you can leave checking and savings unchecked.
Done. The first sync finishes in a few seconds.

Your active time: about 30 seconds. If you have a long card history, the rest of the sync runs in the background and the page refreshes when it’s done.

If something doesn’t work:

The pop-up bounces back without finishing: close it, clear cookies for your bank’s site, and try again.

“This bank is temporarily unavailable”: wait ten minutes and retry. Bank outages usually clear quickly.

Your bank can’t be found: add your cards manually instead. We still recommend the right cards; the recommendations are just less personalized.

Pro tip – if your bank isn’t supported: Plaid covers the vast majority of US banks and credit-card issuers, but very small credit unions sometimes aren’t listed. If your issuer isn’t in the picker, you can still add cards manually on the Cards page and connect a different bank (even just your primary checking account at a major bank) to seed Card Coach with directional spend data.

What gets unlocked once you connect

The whole point of the setup is what happens on the other side. Connecting Plaid changes three Travel Diari surfaces.

Surface	Without Plaid	With Plaid connected
Cards page	You add each card by hand	Your credit cards auto-populate from your bank’s card list, mapped to our catalog
Card Coach	Generic best-card-for-category guidance	Recommendations weighted by your real trailing-12-month spend, by category
Statement credits	You track Uber, Saks, Equinox, DoorDash credits in a spreadsheet	We auto-detect matching charges and show what you’ve claimed this period
Sweet-spot suggestions	Generic destinations by program	Suggestions weighted toward cities where your card already shows travel spend
Personalized insights	Template-driven	Built from your actual category mix, points balances, and travel signal

Is this safe?

Short version: yes, with the same caveats as any service that touches your money. Plaid handles bank connections for thousands of apps you already use – Venmo, Robinhood, Cash App, most personal-finance apps. Your bank password is never typed into our site or theirs in a way that we can read. The key we hold is read-only and revocable, and we encrypt it before storing it.

If you ever want to unconnect:

From Travel Diari: Cards page → click your bank → Disconnect. That instantly cuts our access.

From Plaid directly: sign in at my.plaid.com and revoke us there. Useful if you can’t sign into Travel Diari for any reason.

To wipe everything: click “Delete all data” in Travel Diari. Cuts the connection AND removes every transaction, balance, and spend pattern we’ve ever stored.

Pre-setup checklist (do this before clicking Connect)

✅ Confirm you’re signed in to the right Travel Diari account (the one you want the data attached to).
✅ Have your bank login credentials handy, including your MFA device.
✅ Skim Plaid’s data-handling page so the modal isn’t a surprise.
✅ Decide up front which accounts you want to share – we only need credit cards, so checking and savings can stay unselected.
✅ Bookmark Plaid Portal so you have an independent revocation path.
✅ If you use a password manager, generate a long unique password for your bank before linking – good hygiene regardless of Plaid.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Travel Diari ever see my bank password?

No. You type your password into your bank’s own login page (or directly into Plaid’s secure pop-up). It never reaches us in any form.

Can Travel Diari move money out of my account?

No. We have a read-only view. We can see what you’ve spent; we can’t initiate any transfer, payment, or charge.

What happens to my data if I disconnect?

Disconnect cuts our access immediately. Your history stays so that your recommendations still work. If you want everything erased – history included – click “Delete all data” instead.

Can I unconnect without logging into Travel Diari?

Yes. Sign in at my.plaid.com and revoke us from there. That cuts our access at the source.

Why does Travel Diari need to see what I spend?

So we can give you specific recommendations instead of generic ones. “You should get the Chase Sapphire Reserve” is easy advice. “This card would earn you an extra $X this year based on where you actually swipe” is what turns the app into a personal coach. We can only do the second one if we can see your spend.

What if I’d rather skip the bank connection entirely?

Add your cards manually instead. Recommendations are slightly less personalized without spend data, but everything still works. A lot of users start here and connect later.