Travel Money Card: Thomson or other?

scottyj17

Hi All,

I'm about to embark on a 7 week tour of America with Trek America, however my question is, which travel money card have you had the best experiences using?

Obviously taking cash is not a viable option, and I'm not sure travel cheques are the way forward for me either. With the travel cards I understand that essentially they are chip and pin, safe to use and that there is a standard $2-3 charge for each ATM withdrawal.

Who has the best rates when changing or are the rates based on the day I withdraw the money?

Any help would be much appreciated.

scottyj17

BUMP - Anyone?

irstaroo22

Hey I did trek america a few years ago, best trip EVER!! Travelers cheques are rubbish, definitely don't take them. When I went both me and my friend had Lloyds student cards, and they didn't work for over half of our trip as they put a bar on them..... so annoying! Luckily we took a bit of cash with us, and on the first day of trek paid all of our food kitty money and additional trip costs to the trek leader, so we barely needed to spend anything for the whole time anyways. I would defo say to just pay for loads of things on day 1 as then its out of the way In terms of travel cards I'm not sure which will be best, sorry! Which trip are you doing?

jackieblack

I've never had a problem using travellers cheques in the USA (except once in a one-horse town in the middle of nowhere in Arizona, I don't think they'd knew what they were!).
BUT you MUST take $ cheques, not £, if you take any. You can use them like cash and if the thing you are paying for is a smaller amount than the TC you are paying with they give you change in cash.

dzug1

If you buy a card in $US then the exchange rate is fixed when you buy it or top it up. If you get a card in ££ then the exchange rate is set when you spend/use the ATM.

Read the travel money section (Travel Motoring at the top of this page)

I'd doubt if the Thompson one was much good - travel agents ones are not normally. But I haven't looked at it in detail

Caxton Fx/Fairfx/Travelex Global Passport are the ones that seem to come out tops.

scottyj17

Thanks for the replies. Apologies as I'm a complete novice and only found out about this method of payments today. I leave on Tuesday so half of these services I may not be able to use. Will have to find a place to check the rates Thomson, Thomas Cook, etc are using and pick the best one in store.

In answer to irstaroo22, i'm doing the Grand Trek, 43 day tour from LA departing on May 18th. Flying May 17th in the am. Very much looking forward to it and a complete newbie to trekking though I have visited America on numerous occassions.

jackieblack

Have a fab time:)

stephb34

Thomas cook cards are backed by mastercard you want the us$ one and the rate you get is what you load it at on the day, you can have 2 cards on the same pot of money and they aren't linked to any bank account so no worries about that being emptied. You can open them in a TC shop in 10 mins just need your money and ID always ask what the rate is first and always ask for the VIP rate its hovering between 1.58 to 1.62 at the moment, you can also top it up on the internet and you get the VIP rate anyway on there. They are free to use except when you use the hole in the wall and that costs you about 2.5$ per transaction. I think TCook ones have better rates than Thomsons and the post office but not as good as the internet ones but i don't know anything about them and if your going tuesday i don't know if you'd get it in time.