Cheap Travel Money Discussion Area

emilygilmore

I've used Travelex cash passport and found it very good but that was in the US.

In india I just got out £100 on my UK card every so often, and kept it in my money belt. There weren't many cash machines and very very few shops would take cards so I didn't find it much point to get a proper card.

unknownking123

emilygilmore wrote: »

I've used Travelex cash passport and found it very good but that was in the US.

In india I just got out £100 on my UK card every so often, and kept it in my money belt. There weren't many cash machines and very very few shops would take cards so I didn't find it much point to get a proper card.

Thanks for the reply.

With my bank charging a maximum of £5 for withdrawing money from an ATM, would it be wise of me to get a prepaid card?

I was thinking of taking:
- GBP - £50 max
- Traveller's cheques
- Debit card

Colinwr5

KTF wrote: »

The card in the comparison table is the Santander Zero credit card (Mastercard).

Just to confuse things there is also a Santander Zero current account which comes with a debit card. No fees at all if you meet the qualifying criteria.

I use both Saga and Santander credit cards while in South Africa. Although both claim 0% charges for overseas use I always get a 1.5% better exchange rate from Saga.

park_gate

Colinwr5 wrote: »

I use both Saga and Santander credit cards while in South Africa. Although both claim 0% charges for overseas use I always get a 1.5% better exchange rate from Saga.

Wouldn't you be better off using the Santander Zero debit card as credit cards carry cash advance fees?

MonkeyG0D

I'm having a nightmare trying to sort out a suitable credit card for spending abroad as no one wants to give me one, I don't have any bad credit history and don't owe any money to anyone, its really annoying how these credit checking companies work out risk! but as I can't get a credit card with either santander or halifax and i imagine the post office will be the same I'm at a loss of what to do.

I will be travelling for around 5 months, so i can't carry the money with me, and it will be mainly around south east asia and south america so i'll need lots of different currencies.

I just don't know what to do :mad:

techtitch

This might be on another post but just in case, (I haven't checked as I'm on the internet using a Ghanaian mobile phone), I've been using Halifax Clarity and Santander Zero and for both of them, as long as I keep them in credit I don't pay any interest.

In Ghana only Ghana Commercial Bank and Stanbic accept Mastercard. Elsewhere in West Africa I expect Mastercard will be impossible (in Togo one bank did accept a friend's Mastercard but didn't accept either of mine). In this case it seems a Nationwide debit card is the cheapest, at 2% plus £1, although that hits the rate quite hard as ATMs here often have a maximum per withdrawl of under £100.

Aaron

MonkeyG0D wrote: »

I can't get a credit card with either santander or halifax and i imagine the post office will be the same I'm at a loss of what to do.

Sorry if there's an obvious answer, but why not get a FairFX or CaxtonFXCard prepaid card then?

Nessie23

MonkeyG0D wrote: »

I'm having a nightmare trying to sort out a suitable credit card for spending abroad as no one wants to give me one, I don't have any bad credit history and don't owe any money to anyone, its really annoying how these credit checking companies work out risk! but as I can't get a credit card with either santander or halifax and i imagine the post office will be the same I'm at a loss of what to do.

I will be travelling for around 5 months, so i can't carry the money with me, and it will be mainly around south east asia and south america so i'll need lots of different currencies.

I just don't know what to do :mad:

Hi MonkeyG0D,
In addition to the the pre-pay cards mentioned by Aaron, you might be able to get a no fees debit card such as Metro Bank or N&P Gold account see. See the MSE´s article http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-travel-money

:question: However too many credit check all at once can damage your credit rating. :question:

You might want to read MSE's article on credit rating with tips on how to improve your credit rating
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/credit-rating-credit-score

Nessie

showme_2

Hi Everyone,

We read through this thread with great interest and have taken the advise that has been offered and also learned a great deal! Just to summaries our position -

We (the Better half and 2 children) are off to Australia at the end of the month for 5 weeks to visit family. We have purchased a Halifax Clarity card (21.9%) 5300 limit. And have been told it's on it's way to us when we called middle of last week (fingers crossed).

But after reading the exchange rate people are receiving from their credit cards i.e 1.5 to 1.53 oz dollars to the pound we are strongly considering purchasing a large amount of travels cheques through the post office at 1.56. And using the clarity card for the last few days of our trip if we run out of travelers cheques (As a back up). This would give us peace of mind that we have receive a good exchange rate for a large part of our spending.

There are many of you that really know your stuff on this subject, so hopefully you can advise whether we're making the right choose in our specific situation. No one has every mentioned travels cheques on this thread so it's made me wonder whether we've missed the point??:o

We would be very gratefully for any advise.:)

Kind Regards

James

Baldur

showme wrote: »

......No one has every mentioned travels cheques on this thread so it's made me wonder whether we've missed the point??

With Travellers cheques you tend to be charged twice (either up-front or in the rate) - once when purchasing them and again when changing them abroad.

Remember that the rate changes daily (at least).

The Mastercard exchange rate checker for 5/4/2011 shows that if you had used the Clarity Card for a purchase which was transacted by them on that date you would have received a rate of 1.576010.

<Edit> The Post Office online rate for AUD Travellers Cheques today is 1.5280 for comparison.