Dollars left over on Cash Passport

davidjay85

Hi,

Looking for some advice. I have a Thomas cook Cash Passport with $500 left on it from a recent trip to the states. Thomas Cook offered a terrible rate to give me the money back in sterling.

I was wondering if there was a way to get more of the money back from it.



Thanks

stephb34

Will you be going again leave it on there but don't forget about the inactivity fee after 15 months of last usage, or hope the $ rate drops then you'll get a better rate on buy back. Other than that no there isn't a better way.

shaun_from_Africa

There are a couple of other options.

Some airports in the UK have cash machines that dispense $s instead of £'s and you could empty the cash passport this way. If you know someone who is travelling to the US in the future, you could then sell the dollars to them or shop around to see if you can find a better deal for exchanging them to Sterling.
Gatwick and Heathrow have these machines in the main terminals before security and other airports may be the same.

Alternatively, if you know someone who is travelling to the states and it's someone that you trust, you could give them the cash passport for them to use over there and they could give you the equivalent Sterling balance in cash. (There are quite a few ATM's in the US where cash can be taken from prepaid cards for little or no charge at all).

davidjay85

Thanks for the replies! my nearest airport is Bristol - I'll find out if they have a dollar dispensing cash machine as that sounds like my best option.

What if I use the card for online purchases? Will that work or will I incur various fees from the store and/or Thomas Cook for using a foreign currency?

Thanks,

benjus

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

Some airports in the UK have cash machines that dispense $s instead of £'s and you could empty the cash passport this way.

I don't think this would work. I have never come across an ATM in the UK that dispenses dollars and charges the card in dollars (except possibly the Citibank ones, but only if you have a Citibank USD account). All of the dollar ATMs I've seen convert the USD amount to GBP (at a bad exchange rate) and charge the card in GBP. So you'd end up converting USD->GBP->USD with a markup at each conversion. It would be better just to withdraw Sterling from a normal ATM.

benjus

Just to add - this is one reason that most of the experienced Moneysavers on this board don't like currency cards, and always recommend keeping the money in GBP and only converting it as you spend/withdraw cash while abroad.

shaun_from_Africa

benjus wrote: »

I don't think this would work. I have never come across an ATM in the UK that dispenses dollars and charges the card in dollars.

This is exactly what happens if you have a preloaded cash passport or other prepaid card with dollars on it and it is something that I do on a regular basis.

Below is a copy of a fairly recent transaction from my Travelex cash passport statement showing that I took $100 in cash from the $US ATM at Gatwick and exactly $100 was taken from the balance.
As it doesn't class as a cash advance, there are normally no fees payable.

benjus

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

This is exactly what happens if you have a preloaded cash passport or other prepaid card with dollars on it and it is something that I do on a regular basis.

Below is a copy of a fairly recent transaction from my Travelex cash passport statement showing that I took $100 in cash from the $US ATM at Gatwick and exactly $100 was taken from the balance.
As it doesn't class as a cash advance, there are normally no fees payable.

Fair enough... I stand corrected. I can't see that image as I'm at work, but I'll take your word for it.

eDicky

davidjay85 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies! my nearest airport is Bristol - I'll find out if they have a dollar dispensing cash machine as that sounds like my best option.

What if I use the card for online purchases? Will that work or will I incur various fees from the store and/or Thomas Cook for using a foreign currency?

Be careful, make sure it is a Moneycorp ATM for USD/EUR which will debit your card directly in dollars (select that option), not an ordinary ATM or a Travelex USD/EUR ATM which will debit your card in GBP. There is a Moneycorp branch at Bristol airport, not sure about an ATM.

No reason I can think of why you cannot make USD purchases from a US online retailer with your card.