Fair FX Help please

scoobyvelvia

Hi , I travel a great deal for business and am fed up with the fees imposed on my Natwest current account card for foreign transactions and cash withdrawls. I applied 2 months ago for the Nationwide current account as reccomended my money saving expert, but they are now pulling this account.
So now I think the Fair FX Preloaded card looks like a good option.

A couple of questions:

1. I live in the UK and have UK bank accounts. I am confused as to whether i should have the card in Euro or Dollars? There is a prepaid Mastercard in euro and dollars or an 'Anywhere' card for sterling. Anybody know the pros and cons?

2. How quickly do transfers to the card take to process?

3. Do you get a statement with the account? It would obviously be useful for cash flow mangement and end of year expenses.

Many thanks.

CountryGoose

I gave my FairFx card its first run out today in South Africa.

1000ZAR shows as 89.84GBP on xe.com.

On my FairFx Account I have been charged £89.94, which is next to no difference. (.99888888 by my calculator). My fee is £1.35, which is the 1.5% promised. So far I'm a happy man :j

To answer your questions....

1. I live in the UK and have UK bank accounts. I am confused as to whether i should have the card in Euro or Dollars? There is a prepaid Mastercard in euro and dollars or an 'Anywhere' card for sterling. Anybody know the pros and cons?

Sterling (Anywhere) all time. The others charge a flat fee for ATMs - I could take out just 100ZAR tomorrow for 14p. You are also looking at double rate conversions if your travel away from the base currency and FX gains/losses. NB - I'm only advocating this card for ATMS

2. How quickly do transfers to the card take to process?

Mine have been pretty much instant funding it with a debit card online.

3. Do you get a statement with the account? It would obviously be useful for cash flow mangement and end of year expenses.

I have a mini statement online. You would need to print that for you records. Personally, I put all my expenses through the xe.com travel expense calculator with a 5% load for cash. I need to fund and run the card with my own cash - I charge a premium for that service. I could easily have gone to the currency counter at the airport....... http://www.xe.com/tec/table.shtml

Louisdf

I would get a anywhere card AND a euro card (and a US card if this applies to you.) There is no fee for POS transactions in Europe/US (at shops/over the phone/online.) Get two of each card that you want, and put £10 on it. That way if the card with the most of the money gets lost/stolen, you can transfer the funds to the other card straight away. There is also no charge in the UK for POS transactions, which is very useful if you have excess funds on your Fairfx card. The card is very easy to use and set up. Mine took 4 days to arrive.


Oh and when you top up, only do it by debit card (the faster way, and its free).

whatusername

If you travel a lot outwith the states or eurozone i'd get an anywhere card only, the euro or dollar card only benefits you by locking the exchange rate in which for budgeting helps a lot of people. The anywhere card gets the daily interbank rate less 1.5%

adindas

This is not accurate. There is 1.5% transaction fee for the Anywhere Card (£ Card) for domestic use in the UK. This make sense otherwies they will not be able to make profit at al.

See row 3 of the table from fairfx

http://www.fairfx.com/whatitcosts

ADINDAS

Louisdf wrote: »

There is also no charge in the UK for POS transactions, which is very useful if you have excess funds on your Fairfx card. The card is very easy to use and set up. Mine took 4 days to arrive.


Oh and when you top up, only do it by debit card (the faster way, and its free).

Louisdf

adindas wrote: »

This is not accurate. There is 1.5% transaction fee for the Anywhere Card (£ Card) for domestic use in the UK. This make sense otherwies they will not be able to make profit at al.

See row 3 of the table from fairfx

http://www.fairfx.com/whatitcosts

ADINDAS

sorry I meant if you had the euro/US card.

Louisdf

Also OP, I don't think natwest are that bad for spending abroad. The debit card is expensive, especially for withdrawing. However, I have used the credit card on foreign websites/POS abroad and I got the interbank rate minus a few pennies.

CountryGoose

Louisdf wrote: »

sorry I meant if you had the euro/US card.

But then you pay for conversion back to $.

CountryGoose

Louisdf wrote: »

I would get a anywhere card AND a euro card (and a US card if this applies to you.) There is no fee for POS transactions in Europe/US (at shops/over the phone/online.) Get two of each card that you want, and put £10 on it. That way if the card with the most of the money gets lost/stolen, you can transfer the funds to the other card straight away. There is also no charge in the UK for POS transactions, which is very useful if you have excess funds on your Fairfx card. The card is very easy to use and set up. Mine took 4 days to arrive.
Oh and when you top up, only do it by debit card (the faster way, and its free).

Why would you want three cards, in different currencies,with small amounts on that will be hard to run to zero and will provide poor value when compared to using a good value credit card?

For ATM fees, the currency cards are poor for small amounts.

For shop purchases, the currency cards have higher loading than a good value credit card.

Louisdf

CountryGoose wrote: »

But then you pay for conversion back to $.

Well as it says there's no fee, surely you just get the rate at which you brought it. So, if you brought something for £100 at 1.20, then 120 euros would be taken off the card, right? So you're not losing anything.

Donnie

Louisdf wrote: »

Well as it says there's no fee, surely you just get the rate at which you brought it. So, if you brought something for £100 at 1.20, then 120 euros would be taken off the card, right? So you're not losing anything.

It depends on how the transaction is viewed. If viewed as a European card, then your transaction would need to be converted to pounds at the prevailing exchange rate at the time and not the rate at which you bought the euros.

If you were to use the cards(Euro/US$) in a country where Euros or Dollars are not the local currency, the exchange rate would be the wholesale MasterCard® market rate.

Unless you know this to be different, you should not be posting what you have written as advice.