UKash Pre Paid travel Card

BradNorthrop

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I recently registered for a UKash prepaid US Dollar Travel Card. Before I went away i purchased some items online using the card including my ESTA and some tickets for shows whilst away. Unfortuantely when I looked on my UKash statement I was being charged $2 per transaction. i queried this with Ukash as they state that there are no fees payable.

UKash confirmed that there are no fees charged by themselves and that the $2 transaction fee was a POS international fee charged bu US customs.They have said that this will apply to any purchases made in the UK from a US site. Has anyone come across this before as this didnt the last time I used a prepaid travel card 4 years ago.

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated. Also UKash states there are no fees for ATM withdrawals and payments in the US, has anyone had any experience with this and are there any other hidden fees to be aware of?

Cheers,
Brad

NiftyDigits

BradNorthrop wrote: »

I recently registered for a UKash prepaid US Dollar Travel Card. Before I went away i purchased some items online using the card including my ESTA and some tickets for shows whilst away. Unfortuantely when I looked on my UKash statement I was being charged $2 per transaction. i queried this with Ukash as they state that there are no fees payable.

UKash confirmed that there are no fees charged by themselves and that the $2 transaction fee was a POS international fee charged bu US customs.They have said that this will apply to any purchases made in the UK from a US site. Has anyone come across this before as this didnt the last time I used a prepaid travel card 4 years ago.

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated. Also UKash states there are no fees for ATM withdrawals and payments in the US, has anyone had any experience with this and are there any other hidden fees to be aware of?

Cheers,
Brad

Sounds like nonsense to me. If this were the case, it would happen for every card. It clearly does not, as I wasn't charged extra for my ESTA.

BradNorthrop

Thanks for the response. I didn't think it made sense as I wasn't charged this the last time I bought my ESTA with a travel card. Has anyone else had any experience with this as I have escalated this with them already and not got anywhere!

TravelMoneyGuru

Seems this was a genuine technical error and the fees shouldn't have been applied. The problem has been fixed and any fees will be refunded.

Julesmarket

We are travelling to the USA in October and having read a lot on line about Ukash and the Halifax Travel Credit Card I am totally confused as to which is the better option! We have paid for most of the expensive items upfront - hotels,flights, car hire but nothing else so are going to need a fair amount to cover food,petrol etc etc! Any advice would be really welcome! Thanks

notadwarf

Hi - I on 15th July purchased a UKash card on line. As of 23rd July nothing has arrived. I called them today and they are clearly in a mess and getting my money back appears no easy thing. Most concerning.

NiftyDigits

TravelMoneyGuru wrote: »

Seems this was a genuine technical error and the fees shouldn't have been applied. The problem has been fixed and any fees will be refunded.

and how would you know this?

NiftyDigits

Julesmarket wrote: »

We are travelling to the USA in October and having read a lot on line about Ukash and the Halifax Travel Credit Card I am totally confused as to which is the better option! We have paid for most of the expensive items upfront - hotels,flights, car hire but nothing else so are going to need a fair amount to cover food,petrol etc etc! Any advice would be really welcome! Thanks

Halifax Clarity is clearly better.
I generally advise against currency cards. Though the UKASH is not bad, as they charge between 1.2% and 1.5% to convert your currency. Though of course this only holds if you spend all of the money on the card in your destination.

Kalixa Pay is a more versatile Prepaid card. No costs attached to purchases anywhere in the world. Fixed cost to withdrawals.
Take out the equivalent of £200(US$340) and the percentage cost is the same the percentage taken by UKASH.
In addition, you save 1.5% for every purchase against what UKASH would have taken.

Back in the UK, you can spend what remains Pound for Pound.

Just another option.

Jules2013

Thanks Nifty Digits! I was leaning towards Halifax clarity so that's good! As I am "of a certain age" is the Saga card a better deal than the Halifax one? Thanks again!

PeteDoff

TravelMoneyGuru wrote: »

Seems this was a genuine technical error and the fees shouldn't have been applied. The problem has been fixed and any fees will be refunded.

And who are you?

Cell

I purchased a Euro UKASH card, and it was received within the designated time period.

The first problem was that I thought there was a Mobile App, but that only applies to their normal range of products.

Secondly I was unable to obtain a balance from any cash machine abroad (Gran Canaria) that I used.

The card itself worked fine, and the rate is good, with no fees at all.

BUT...without an App I tried to access the main web page on 3G abroad, and the site crawled along to the point of timing out virtually all the time. Other sites worked fine.

When I got to an internet cafe to top up I was blocked from doing so because I had 'reached my transaction limit'. I hadn't topped up for a week and only ever had a maximum of 500 Euro on the card. It was 11pm so the support office was closed, and I was already aware that you have to wait for 15-20 minutes for a response after the Mobile App query, so wouldn't have bothered.

Tried to top up a day or so later - same message. What limit had I breached? There are none that I could possibly have crossed the line with.

So...good in some ways, but with no app, an unreliable top up system from abroad (in my experience) and poor customer service response times to be honest for a few hundred Euro of spending money the additional cost of simply withdrawing my cash from Visa Debit is worth the lack of hassle.