Fairfx Euro card

johnsusan

I am about to obtain one of these cards and put 800 euros onto it which I will be withdrawing in Strasbourg.

Does anyone out there know if when I pay for this using my coop visa debit card whether or not the co-op charge me as if it is a foreign currency transaction?

Also does anyone know if there a limit of the amount of euros I can obtain on one of these cards at a french atm in a 24 hour period? If so what is it please?


Thanks and grateful for any assistance.

Toe-Jam

johnsusan wrote: »

I am about to obtain one of these cards and put 800 euros onto it which I will be withdrawing in Strasbourg.

Does anyone out there know if when I pay for this using my coop visa debit card whether or not the co-op charge me as if it is a foreign currency transaction?

Also does anyone know if there a limit of the amount of euros I can obtain on one of these cards at a french atm in a 24 hour period? If so what is it please?


Thanks and grateful for any assistance.

Top up by bank transfer it takes 24 hours to be credited if you are unsure if you'll be charged.

Read the terms and conditions for limits

dzug1

The Coop charge for foreign currency purchases. Whether FairFx counts as that I don't know

The only limit on ATM usage that I can spot on their website is

You can make up to 3 ATM withdrawals per day and 10 over a 4 day period. If you exceed these limits the card gets locked for ATM usage

To get round this they recommend using it for purchases wherever possible. And an individual ATM will have a maximum transaction limit

Beaver991

Good morning,

Shouldn't be a charge, prepaid card companies take the payment in sterling then do the conversion themselves (that's kindof the point). If you are unsure i would just email them.

dzug1

Beaver991 wrote: »

Good morning,

Shouldn't be a charge, prepaid card companies take the payment in sterling then do the conversion themselves (that's kindof the point). If you are unsure i would just email them.

Just like BdeC then. They take the payment in sterling, then do the conversion, but some cards charge.

pixlink

I just used one of the FairFX cards for a trip to the Algarve and it worked OK for me with a couple of caveats:

I loaded £600 before I went and topped up £400 more via internet cafes when abroad and got an average rate of £1 = 1.12 euros compared to the euro ATM at the airport which gave 1.04

What I didn't know before I went was that the local ATM cash withdrawal limit is 200 euros per day and with the 1.50 euros charged per ATM withdrawal, it can be inconvenient to keep budgeting for not just what you spend but how you spend it, as it is easy to spend 200 euros in cash in a day with a family on vacation. Also many places charged 5% extra for paying by card too and really preferred cash, so I once ended up using my "card from Hell" anyway just to get some cash.

Also it was a pain to get net access to top it up (and it cost me 75 pence per time for 15 minutes) and the top up by text charges work out to be £1.50 each (balance, quote & buy) plus international roaming charges for my mobile.

I can't find anything on the FairFX website about this but it seems from other forum posts that this ATM limit is set by the ATM (so is 'systemic') and depends on what card being used and the ATM banks' relationship with the issuer and varies from country to country.

I don't know if there's a difference between a pre-paid debit card, a credit card and a regular debit card. Americans posters report finding this kind of limit too in Portugal. Common advice seems to be go to another ATM and make a second withdrawal but that is quite often simply not practical for a traveller and also incurs another 1.50 euros from FairFX. It's also confusing as to whether the limit is set per ATM per 24 hours or per account in 24 hours. In any case, it's quite inconvenient and this needs further explanation by FairFX.

johnsusan

I went ahead and used my Lloyds debit card to load this euro card and as expected there was no additional charge.

I am a bit concerned that local atm limits may add to the number of withdrawals I have to make to get my cash out of the card but will update this thread when I find out exactly what happens to me. I want to draw 800 euros all at once - but am not optimistic given the post above.

Thanks for the information

stilltheone

FairFx:

You can make up to 3 ATM withdrawals per day and 10 over a 4 day period. If you exceed these limits the card gets locked for ATM usage.

Since you pay for each withdrawal and you already paid to buy the Euros...

I'm not sure why you were not discouraged from this course of action.

It would have been much better to get an alternative card; Travelex Cash Passport Globe. Preferably two seperate accounts if you have a spouse or partner.

zagfles

Yes, in some countries the ATM withdrawal limit is very low, sometimes EUR200. In Italy whenever I requested over EUR250 it always came back saying my bank had declined the transaction (which it hadn't), so effectively the limit was EUR250.

I'd be surprised if you could get EUR800 out in one go anywhere (think the usual UK limit is GBP 400-500).

SusanSpain

We didn't read the small print on the FairFX card and ended up paying commissions on ATM withdrawals...
The whole point of taking a pre-loaded card was to avoid these charges, which all of the advertising seemed to be telling us we would get. Only to find out once we had started using the card, that we were stung for each and every transaction.

We no longer use the card

stilltheone

SusanSpain wrote: »

We didn't read the small print on the FairFX card and ended up paying commissions on ATM withdrawals...
The whole point of taking a pre-loaded card was to avoid these charges, which all of the advertising seemed to be telling us we would get. Only to find out once we had started using the card, that we were stung for each and every transaction.

We no longer use the card

Advertising? The terms of the currency cards are very clear. People tend to get confused by the Sterling cards.