Prepay travel cards

Mgordon28

Can I add a few bits of info concerning the use of these cards, marketed as Cash Passports. The main site does highlight some of its features but I have used both euro and dollar versions recently and they have proved successful in about 95% of cases. Occasionally, a regional bank's ATM in America would not accept the card, sometimes you have to select Credit Card as the option to use, or another machine wanted Savings.
Also, be careful if using as a deposit against a hotel booking. Often the hotel will pre-assign a large amount of cash against default and this amount will thus be unavailable from that moment, so it could prove difficult to keep track of expenditure. In cases where this happened for restaurant purchases, the "overpayment" was automatically refunded.
You are limited in the amount of cash you can top up with over the Internet. I was told it is £750 twice within 60 days.
However, the downside to these cards is the rate offered if you want to close the card after you have finished your travels. My experience yesterday showed what a rip-off these rates are. The mid-rate £/$ exchange rate was 1.61. I was offered a refund rate of 1.84! So do not overload the card

NiftyDigits

Mgordon28 wrote: »

Can I add a few bits of info concerning the use of these cards, marketed as Cash Passports. The main site does highlight some of its features but I have used both euro and dollar versions recently and they have proved successful in about 95% of cases. Occasionally, a regional bank's ATM in America would not accept the card, sometimes you have to select Credit Card as the option to use, or another machine wanted Savings.
Also, be careful if using as a deposit against a hotel booking. Often the hotel will pre-assign a large amount of cash against default and this amount will thus be unavailable from that moment, so it could prove difficult to keep track of expenditure. In cases where this happened for restaurant purchases, the "overpayment" was automatically refunded.
You are limited in the amount of cash you can top up with over the Internet. I was told it is £750 twice within 60 days.
However, the downside to these cards is the rate offered if you want to close the card after you have finished your travels. My experience yesterday showed what a rip-off these rates are. The mid-rate £/$ exchange rate was 1.61. I was offered a refund rate of 1.84! So do not overload the card

Next time, take the Cash Passport Globe.