Cheap Travel Money Discussion Area

jinkssick

Best way if you are thinking of pre loading credit card and not to go against T&Cs regarding money laundering. Is to take out money abroad for example $700, then that same day transfer $700 equivalent in ££ to the card using internet banking.

alan_p_brown

On your Cheapest Travel Money page; box 4 with the above question...

It seems to me that this information is incomplete (I think).
I presume that the advice should be to always pay in local currency.
For example, I went to Egypt, I paid in Euro's... but that means they can do their own exchange rate on Egyptian Pounds to Euros, then the credit card did Euros to GB Pounds.

I would be glad of a clarification on this.

Alan

A.Jones

trish.2rd wrote: »

We are off to Disneyland Paris on 1st April - planning on taking about 800 euros to spend and if we need anymore will use Debit card. Can anyone advise if this is the best was to pay for items there and if so any advise on the best place to buy my Euros.

Thanks in advance
Trish:)

If you still have a couple of weeks to go, then get a FairFX card.

https://www.fairfx.com/

They are free (the £9.95 charge is currently waived). They take about a week to arrive (so obviously only order if you are not going straight away). FairFX have one of the best rates going - much better than any walk-up bureau de change, so order a Euro prepaid mastercard. Top up however much you want on it, and withdraw from ATMs when you get there. There is a 1.50 Euro fee for withdrawing your cash, with the safety that you are not carrying around 800 Euro in cash.

It also has the advantge of no card boking fees if you use Ryanair.

If you order a 10 Euro one, there are still no fees, and you can then top it up when you are ready to go - this saves topping it up and not using it. You can also top it up abroad if you have internet access. This way, you avoid paying your bank fees for using your debit card abroad. Top up the FairFX card online (which is a UK transaction) and use that instead of your UK debit card.

adindas

There are a lot of discussions and people have been telling their experience about this in this forum.

It is against their T&C to have a pre-load your Credit Card.

I have tried once Pre-loading £500.00 and nothing happen and I managed to avoid the interest charge.

So you just need to try and look at it and probably report your experience here so people here could learn from it.

ADINDAS

Keith_Harvey wrote: »

If I pre load a Santander Zero credit card, will this not avoid the monthly interest charges? It would seem more sensible to pre load a zero fee credit card rather than the specialist pre loaded cards. Do they allow you to do this?

KTF

Even though I paid off my Halifax Clarity card in February manually to minimise the interest it appears that they took a DD for the full amount yesterday regardless so it appears that you can pre-load it (can certainly do a manual transfer from another Halifax saving account) as it now has a positive balance.

Now I just need to get on the phone to get the DD refunded under the guarantee scheme this evening...

Money_Man_Steve

Many banks in the USA impose a fee to withdraw cash from their machines. This is usually in the region of $3, but can be as much as $5. unlike UK machines, the fee isn't always displayed upfront, so it's not clear how much the fee is until the ATM is about to dispense your money. You do usually have the option to cancel the transaction at this stage.

Try machines from smaller banks and credit unions, many of which don't charge a fee at all. Otherwise withdraw larger amounts (assuming you will use it and can keep your cash safe) to minimise the number of cash withdrawals that you need to make.

Some example fees (per withdrawal) are;

Wells Fargo $5
Bank of America $3
Chase $3
US Bank $3
Sterling Bank & Trust FREE
Patelco FREE

I'll add to this list as and when I discover more banks' fees.

adindas

Do you still need to pay interest on the DD that have been taken ?

It seems to me they just ignore the payment that was made

KTF wrote: »

Even though I paid off my Halifax Clarity card in February manually to minimise the interest it appears that they took a DD for the full amount yesterday regardless so it appears that you can pre-load it (can certainly do a manual transfer from another Halifax saving account) as it now has a positive balance.

Now I just need to get on the phone to get the DD refunded under the guarantee scheme this evening...

KTF

When the online statement (including some interest charge for taking out cash on the card) was issued I transferred over the money from my Halifax savings account to zero the balance mid Feb.

For the past few weeks the balance has been showing as zero but yesterday they took a DD for the full amount that I had already paid off. Seems their systems didnt pick up on the fact that I had already paid it off weeks ago.

As it happens I had the money in my current account so it didnt put me in the red otherwise that would have been more of a problem to sort out.

Edit: Just called Nationwide (who I bank with) now and they are sorting out a refund and it will be back in my account by Friday.

dzug1

KTF wrote: »

Even though I paid off my Halifax Clarity card in February manually to minimise the interest it appears that they took a DD for the full amount yesterday regardless so it appears that you can pre-load it (can certainly do a manual transfer from another Halifax saving account) as it now has a positive balance.

Now I just need to get on the phone to get the DD refunded under the guarantee scheme this evening...

But it's not covered by the DD guarantee scheme - they have taken the notified amount on (presumably) the due day. No error has occurred. They would in fact have been breaking the rules if they HAD reduced the DD.

KTF

I didnt ask for it to be refunded under the DD scheme, just explained what had happened and asked how it could be returned.

I could understand if I had paid it off a few days before but I had paid it before the statement date and still they took the full amount.

Its not a big issue (assuming it get cleared up with no problems) as the card worked great.