Prepaid Cards Guide Discussion Area

justjoh

we all got caught up in this cash back/utility warehouse thing didnt we? i logged into here to find out info re prepaid cards. as a pensioner with poor credit rating and hopeless budgeting skills i am desperate to know how to budget. anyway i have now purchased a cash plus mastercard for £29.99 [lasts 2 years] and no charges for putting cash on at any post office. i put £60 on this morning no problem and when i go to tescos i know how much i can spend and no more -that 'll do me. i will let you know how i get on....

chrisjj_2

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cards/prepaid-cards says
The only cost is €1.50/$2 to withdraw cash from an ATM, less than most credit or debit cards.

Is this a mistake? The nearest ATM fee I see on the FairFX site is 1.5%.

charltonfan1

When paying for a flight not starting in the UK Ryanair list the price in EUR but by default convert any Euro purchase from a UK card into GBP just at the last second prior to payment, unless you untick their sneaky box on the payment screen which confirms you dont want to use their cr*p rate (e.g they convert today @1.12 EUR/GBP but with a FairFX card i get 1.192)
Here is a link to a picture showing where you need to look:


http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/115/capturemq.png

HtH

[Deleted User]

justjoh wrote: »

we all got caught up in this cash back/utility warehouse thing didnt we? i logged into here to find out info re prepaid cards. as a pensioner with poor credit rating and hopeless budgeting skills i am desperate to know how to budget. anyway i have now purchased a cash plus mastercard for £29.99 [lasts 2 years] and no charges for putting cash on at any post office. i put £60 on this morning no problem and when i go to tescos i know how much i can spend and no more -that 'll do me. i will let you know how i get on....

Why not just walk into Tesco with £60 in cash and nothing more? Then you'd save yourself £29.99 on buying the card

nixblags

I need to hire a car for a holiday in the USA but to do so I need a credit (not debit) card which I do not have and cannot get due to poor credit history. Does anyone know if a pre-paid card would count as a credit card? None of the car hire firms seem to know.

cjcooper

hi all, im looking into a pre paid card as at the moment i cannot get a debit card due to having a safe bank account through going into a DMP. i will be using it to get my bargains online etc and get cashback etc through quidco.
im happy budgeting and paying cash for stuff in the real world and being sensible but we all know sometimes there are online bargains to be had

what does the board reccomend?

hamedb0001

cjcooper wrote: »

hi all, im looking into a pre paid card as at the moment i cannot get a debit card due to having a safe bank account through going into a DMP. i will be using it to get my bargains online etc and get cashback etc through quidco.
im happy budgeting and paying cash for stuff in the real world and being sensible but we all know sometimes there are online bargains to be had

what does the board reccomend?

I have a very similar issue: just entered an IVA, want to have a widely-accepted card for online purchasing etc. Is the Cash Plus Mastercard the way to go? Seems to be the best of the bunch in the Main Site review.

robin_banks

nixblags wrote: »

I need to hire a car for a holiday in the USA but to do so I need a credit (not debit) card which I do not have and cannot get due to poor credit history. Does anyone know if a pre-paid card would count as a credit card? None of the car hire firms seem to know.

General consencus is no.....

cjcooper

well i went for a kalixia card, £4.95 to join up, and free to top up via bank transfer. seems good and its a mastercard so we shall see how it goes. spend what i can afford but i can now get back to getting some deals and saving money on line

ian_h

nixblags wrote: »

I need to hire a car for a holiday in the USA but to do so I need a credit (not debit) card which I do not have and cannot get due to poor credit history. Does anyone know if a pre-paid card would count as a credit card? None of the car hire firms seem to know.

Cashplus do remove the block on car hire and pay at pump pre authorisations after you have operated the account to their satisfaction for a period of time (in my case it took 6 months and I have no idea what the quaifying criteria are).

Its the ONLY prepaid card that do this.

If you are looking to do this try and load a fair amount each month avoid any transactions declining - i dont know whether pay as you use or the monthly fee option has any effect.

When you have run the card for at least 3 months ring them and ask to be considered ofr the car hire block removal - the decision is given over the phone so they must use some sort of account scoring.