Where to get a VISA Electron card?

Wardi

Thanks for all the info, applied for a Halifax one so I can save on my Ryanair tickets!

jon666

i have just got a travel money card (gbp.sterling) from postoffice.they charge 1.5% to load card or£3.00 minumum charge.i put £200 on card the charge was £3.00 you then have to wait 24hrs to ring up and start the card. i have just book 4 return flights luton to kerry. the cost was £8.00 the card save me £40.00 charge for the flights take off the£3.00 card loading fee it is still a saving of £37.00.

cardguru

Visa Debit is the new title for Visa delta.
Visa electron is not the same as Visa Debit or Visa Delta.
Visa electron always gets real time authorisation from the card scheme.
Most merchants that accept Visa, also accept Visa Electron, if there systems can support it.

dave461_2

Has anyone tried an o2 card yet to buy Ryanair tickets yet?????

EDIT - Found out off post 10 in this link that you can't
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1913289

glossyhair

So fed up with greedy Ryanair! Anything that keeps money away from Mr O'Leary is great by me. I have just applied for basic Bank of Scotland account which seems to be the only one that offered me an appropriate Electron card. Fingers crossed it goes through before I have to make a booking. :j:j:j

slymiloni

I just used a post office travel money card. Got it over the counter and loaded it with sterling then they give you an electron card that you activate the next day over the phone. Only prob was Barclays charged me for the transaction because I paid on my debit card but they see it as buying currency. Easy though, you can just take cash out and pay the post office with that instead. Most importantly it worked to book my Ryan Air flights.

Have since learnt that Barclays do an electron gift card that costs just £3.

NonGeographicalMan

I just booked a return flight today at www.thomsonflights.co.uk on which the total ticket price was only £66.96

When I came to pay the fee options for the various payment card types were as follows:-

Visa Electron (+£0.00 Handling Fee)
Maestro (+£2.95 Handling Fee)
Visa Delta (+2.95 Handling Fee)
Mastercard (+2.5% Handling Fee)
Visa Credit (+2.5% Handling Fee)

Now as it happens I managed to send money across electronically by FastPay from my NatWest current account to my Co-Op Cashminder account and paid for the ticket with my Visa Electron card free of card payment fees but the fare was a very cheap deal indeed and I was worried the price might go up if I did not buy it quickly and for nearly 15 minutes after I made the Fastpay transfer from NatWest to Co-Op Cashminder the transaction was being refused by Thomson. However just as I was about to give up and and pay on my Egg Money Mastercard (2.5% fee - 1% cashback from Egg = 1.5% fee so only a 101p handling charge) Thomson unexpectedly accepted what was definitely going to be my last attempt to use my Co-Op Visa Electron card. So it seems the Fastpay money transfer from NatWest to Co-Op in fact took about 15 minutes. As that is a little bit slower than the speed of light I wonder exactly what antiquated batch processing systems exist along the way to slow Fastpay down?

But the most interesting point is Thomsons charging a £2.95 flat rate fee for Maestro and Visa Delta, as they wrongly call it (now Visa Debit), as this would be say only 0.25% of a £1200 all inclusive holiday booking for a family of four but would have been a 4.4% fee on my low value transaction. So one wonders why Thomson don't charge just say 0.50% on Visa Debit and Maestro as on the lowest likely transaction of around £50 on their website that is still 25p (i.e. covering the likely actual Visa or Mastercard charge for a Visa Debit or Maestro transaction of this value). Certainly their current system where Visa Debit is a lot more expensive than a credit card (especially for those with a 1% cashback credit card) on any lower value transaction looks a bit mad.

But as Thomson don't really seem to be ripoff extra charge artists in quite the way of Ryanair (a 2.5% credit card fee is fair and their £13 return charge for a 20kg checked bag also seems reasonable) one wonders what the deal is with Visa on Electron that also makes them charge a zero fee for it? Is it really just so they don't have to add card fees in to their headline ticket prices (a la Ryanair) or is it because Visa do actually charge merchants much less for Visa Electron. Either way whilst I can see the intent behind a £2.95 flat rate charge for debit cards (which does still make them much cheaper for high value bookings than credit cards) it does have some rather anomalous results for low value transactions.

The answer of course is to get yourself a proper Visa Electron card attached to a bank acccount (not one of these complicated and pricey Entropay or Post Office Money card arrangements) in which case the card payment charge is always zero:j:T:rotfl:

fawinds

When I need buy Ryanair tickets with my Halifax Visa Electron, I transfer the money from my Natwest account to my Easycash account and arrives within seconds.

NonGeographicalMan

fawinds wrote: »

When I need buy Ryanair tickets with my Halifax Visa Electron, I transfer the money from my Natwest account to my Easycash account and arrives within seconds.

It looks like the creaking mainframes are at the Co-Op Bank end then given that my account is also with NatWest.

Although my Coop Cashminder Visa Electron card is valid for nearly two more years perhaps I need to take action now by getting a Halifax Visa Election if this is going to be a persistent problem as obviously one normally sees cheap flights and needs to buy them right now before they go up and not in 15 minutes time when they might not still be at the same price................

slenderkitten

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

I just booked a return flight today at www.thomsonflights.co.uk on which the total ticket price was only £66.96

When I came to pay the fee options for the various payment card types were as follows:-

Visa Electron (+£0.00 Handling Fee)
Maestro (+£2.95 Handling Fee)
Visa Delta (+2.95 Handling Fee)
Mastercard (+2.5% Handling Fee)
Visa Credit (+2.5% Handling Fee)

Now as it happens I managed to send money across electronically by FastPay from my NatWest current account to my Co-Op Cashminder account and paid for the ticket with my Visa Electron card free of card payment fees but the fare was a very cheap deal indeed and I was worried the price might go up if I did not buy it quickly and for nearly 15 minutes after I made the Fastpay transfer from NatWest to Co-Op Cashminder the transaction was being refused by Thomson. However just as I was about to give up and and pay on my Egg Money Mastercard (2.5% fee - 1% cashback from Egg = 1.5% fee so only a 101p handling charge) Thomson unexpectedly accepted what was definitely going to be my last attempt to use my Co-Op Visa Electron card. So it seems the Fastpay money transfer from NatWest to Co-Op in fact took about 15 minutes. As that is a little bit slower than the speed of light I wonder exactly what antiquated batch processing systems exist along the way to slow Fastpay down?

But the most interesting point is Thomsons charging a £2.95 flat rate fee for Maestro and Visa Delta, as they wrongly call it (now Visa Debit), as this would be say only 0.25% of a £1200 all inclusive holiday booking for a family of four but would have been a 4.4% fee on my low value transaction. So one wonders why Thomson don't charge just say 0.50% on Visa Debit and Maestro as on the lowest likely transaction of around £50 on their website that is still 25p (i.e. covering the likely actual Visa or Mastercard charge for a Visa Debit or Maestro transaction of this value). Certainly their current system where Visa Debit is a lot more expensive than a credit card (especially for those with a 1% cashback credit card) on any lower value transaction looks a bit mad.

But as Thomson don't really seem to be ripoff extra charge artists in quite the way of Ryanair (a 2.5% credit card fee is fair and their £13 return charge for a 20kg checked bag also seems reasonable) one wonders what the deal is with Visa on Electron that also makes them charge a zero fee for it? Is it really just so they don't have to add card fees in to their headline ticket prices (a la Ryanair) or is it because Visa do actually charge merchants much less for Visa Electron. Either way whilst I can see the intent behind a £2.95 flat rate charge for debit cards (which does still make them much cheaper for high value bookings than credit cards) it does have some rather anomalous results for low value transactions.

The answer of course is to get yourself a proper Visa Electron card attached to a bank acccount (not one of these complicated and pricey Entropay or Post Office Money card arrangements) in which case the card payment charge is always zero:j:T:rotfl:

i have a co-op cashminder account for about 2 years the bank has now told me it's been changed from visa/electron to a proper debit card (visa) so now you will get charged by ryanair etc, so how have you managed to not pay, is it purely down to the company saying they will charge this that and the other or what?