Spain - Best SIM & Bank Account

stilltheone

benjus wrote: »

To be honest Martin's guide is out of date and needs to be revised.

It only really discusses the cards in specific currencies, e.g. the EUR and USD cards. It fails to mention that the GBP cards such as FairFX Anywhere and TravelEx Cash Passport Globe are often cheaper than these. The main difference is that you keep your money in GBP until you spend it, so you get the exchange rate on the day you use it rather than on the day you get the card. This may be seen as an unwanted risk by some.

FairFX Anywhere has a marginally better exchange rate than the TravelEx Globe card, but it has a charge for cash withdrawals, making the TravelEx Globe card better overall.

That is slightly misleading, as the exchange rates are exactly the same.

benjus

stilltheone wrote: »

That is slightly misleading, as the exchange rates are exactly the same.

OK, the FairFX Anywhere card applies marginally less loading on the Mastercard exchange rate, resulting in a marginally better overall rate. Although I think we're really splitting hairs here...

stilltheone

benjus wrote: »

OK, the FairFX Anywhere card applies marginally less loading on the Mastercard exchange rate, resulting in a marginally better overall rate. Although I think we're really splitting hairs here...

No, you are wrong again. I am certainly not 'splitting hairs'.
You don't need me to tell you that poorly written articles only lead to more confusion.

Both cards use the unadulterated Mastercard rate. There is no 'loading'.

The way the cards work is by not tampering with the exchange rate at all, but taking a fee on top of your spending.

If you are trying to simplify the explanation, it would be better to write that FairFx Anywhere at 1.4% takes a 0.09% lower fee for overseas purchases, but charges £1 on top of that for ATM withdrawals.
TCPG takes a flat fee of 1.49% for any overseas usage.

It is not similar to the way the CaxtonFx Global card works, which is to load the exchange rate.

Of course it's tedious to write the same thing over and over again, since the same question is posed every day.

So simple advice is given, but the ungrateful still complain because they can't be bothered to use the Search function.

stilltheone

benjus wrote: »

OK, the FairFX Anywhere card applies marginally less loading on the Mastercard exchange rate, resulting in a marginally better overall rate. Although I think we're really splitting hairs here...

A separate explanation for you as to why this is misleading.

Recently we had a poster here loading £63.99 on his FairFx Anywhere Card in order to pay Ryanair £63.99 for a flight. Of course it didn't work.

If the situation was replicated, but in Euros; it would work with Caxton, but not with FairFx. Of course such an explanation would only serve to confuse the uninitiated.
But the reason of course is that Caxton takes their fee out of the exchange rate(loading), whereas FA and TCPG add it to your total spend.

benjus

OK, fair point...

I think we can all agree that it would make life a LOT easier if one of Martin's staff could just sort out that article to make it clearer.

stilltheone

benjus wrote: »

OK, fair point...

I think we can all agree that it would make life a LOT easier if one of Martin's staff could just sort out that article to make it clearer.

Made that point to them ages ago... not sure why they haven't bothered.

Unless they too are confused.

The effect of it is that we end up having to defend our recommendations, on an all too regular basis.

melb

maybe you could offer to write it for them - to avoid any possible confusion for anyone else. Because that would be very irritating.

stilltheone

melb wrote: »

maybe you could offer to write it for them - to avoid any possible confusion for anyone else. Because that would be very irritating.

The info has been posted on the forums a multitude of times over many months. Perhaps they don't see the Prepaid Mastercards as important enough to warrant the edit.

Part of the problem is that they don't differentiate between Cash Passport Sterling and the Travelex Cash Passport Globe and the rest of the article is equally obtuse.