Where to get a VISA Electron card?

noh

simonne15 wrote: »

:(As Easyjet and probably others now have a colossal fee of £40+ for paying for flights/holidays using credit cards, does anyone know how to get a Visa Electron card now, this year- as the thread seems to have ended in 2006 and many banks no longer issues such cards- well they are struggling to make ends meet aren't they!

Halifax Easycash
http://www.halifax.co.uk/bankaccounts/easycash.asp

NonGeographicalMan

simonne15 wrote: »

:(As Easyjet and probably others now have a colossal fee of £40+ for paying for flights/holidays using credit cards, does anyone know how to get a Visa Electron card now, this year- as the thread seems to have ended in 2006 and many banks no longer issues such cards- well they are struggling to make ends meet aren't they!

See http://visa-electron.co.uk/list-of-banks-that-issue-visa-electron-cards-in-the-uk/

Basically the Halifax/Bank of Scotland Easycash account is the best option for getting a permanent fee free Visa Electron card.

There are other ways like the Travel Money Electron cards issued by the Post Office and others or https://www.entropay.co.uk but they all involve paying some percentage of the money loaded on to the card/account. By contrast the Halifax/BankOfScotland Easycash account is completely fee free to operate.

For Ryanair you will need a FairFx Sterling Prepaid Mastercard and apply for it via https://www.topcashback.co.uk

ermepb

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

See http://visa-electron.co.uk/list-of-banks-that-issue-visa-electron-cards-in-the-uk/

Basically the Halifax/Bank of Scotland Easycash account is the best option for getting a permanent fee free Visa Electron card.

Please check the conditions of the Halifax Visa Electron card carefully. At least for the usual Visa debit cards, Halifax charges a fixed £1.50 fee if you pay in non-Sterling currency. So if you book a flight back from Euroland to the UK for 5€, Halifax will charge you the £-amount, the standard 2% foreign exchanhe commission plus the fixed £1.50 fee. It can be expensive for a 5€ flight.

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

For Ryanair you will need a FairFx Sterling Prepaid Mastercard and apply for it via www.topcashback.co.uk

For a Mastercard Prepaid I would recommend Neteller. It is basically free if you load the money per bank transfer (takes a couple of days). You can get a Neteller Mastercard Prepaid denominated in Euros or Sterling depending on your needs.

No matter the currency denomination of the card, always let your card provider (no matter which) do the foreign exchange conversion. Ryanair offers a "guaranteed" rate that is approximately 4-5% more expensive than the going exchange rate.

blades123

My wife's visa electron is with the Halifax and not only being a excellent card to use to avoid excessive charges, the bank account is great to. I don't know why, I always thought it was do to it being a visa electron account but it could just be the Halifax, however tranfers into and out of the account takes no more than 2 hours. Even if your account has the faster payment service which usually transfers money over night, with this account, transfers are recieved and credited to your account in less than two hours.

This is excellent if your main account is at another branch, so if you want to pay for a flight, you can easily transfer cash from one bank to the halifax.

Hope this helps

NonGeographicalMan

blades123 wrote: »

Even if your account has the faster payment service which usually transfers money over night, with this account, transfers are recieved and credited to your account in less than two hours.

The Faster Payment service moves money within no more than 10 minutes between the accounts of people at different banks where the scheme is fully implemented.

If I top up my Co-Op Cashminder Visa Electron account from my Natwest account this is how long money takes to get there.

simax

Lloyds TSB to Santander FP transfers take approx 20 secs.

karamunroe

I have a Visa Electron - it's an old one though, but still works - I'm with Bank of Scotland. Hope that helps

kati123

I also have Visa Electron - With the Bank of Scotland/Halifax use it everywhere - only bank account i have

apt

ermepb wrote: »

Please check the conditions of the Halifax Visa Electron card carefully. At least for the usual Visa debit cards, Halifax charges a fixed £1.50 fee if you pay in non-Sterling currency. So if you book a flight back from Euroland to the UK for 5€, Halifax will charge you the £-amount, the standard 2% foreign exchanhe commission plus the fixed £1.50 fee. It can be expensive for a 5€ flight.


With easyJet you should always get the fare quoted in sterling by starting your booking with a flight from the UK and the cancelling this flight in your basket before paying for your flight starting abroad.

Venturian

Interesting that most people find transfers quick to the Halifax. I opened an account on line and nothing happened until I received a letter by snail-mail asking me to take ID into the local branch.

Armed with this letter, on Tuesday took my ID into the local branch to complete the registration process.

I also decide to load the account using a nice cheque I had received from the Taxman.

In the event I was glad I had chosen to do so as I was also told that my card would not be ordered until I had cleared funds in the account.

I was however was very surprised to be told that it would be five complete working days before I could access the proceeds of the cheque which meant that although my on-line banking details arrived yesterday the funds will not clear until Tuesday and my available balance remains at zero.

On the basis of that they will not order my card until my funds have cleared, I suspect that my card will not even be ordered until Tuesday at the earliest.

As things are progressing, it is beginning to look like it will take around three weeks for me to get open the account and that I will not be able to use the account until around two weeks after I first paid in a cheque to open the account.

All in all, not an auspicious start. It may be a useful account, but it seems to be taking an awful long time to set up.

Hopefully once the account is working, transfers from my other bank acounts will be as rapid as others experience. In the meantime, I'm a little disappointed.

Venturian