Travelex Supercard

Gloomendoom

Roger1 wrote: »

In Australia, presumably.

I'm speculating. Could this have anything to do with the surcharges applied on card transactions in Oz, which give the unwary a surprise when checking out of hotels?

My CHF and USD ATM transactions work well.

I did wonder about that. I checked the VISA exchange rate and it tallied exactly with what the amount I was charged, so no surcharge, just a lousy AUD to GBP exchange rate.

sebtomato

Had some issues with a refund. Linked the card in Paypal for non-GBP purchases. Worked fine, but then Paypal refunded a purchase, and it never showed as credit in the Supercard transactions. I had to contact CS, who fixed it in a couple of days, but lucky I checked, else they would have simply kept the money!

Also, tried on Amazon.fr for a EUR purchase, and card was declined repeatedly, so I had to use a different payment mechanism.

I have applied for a Clarity card now, so Supercard will only be used for cash withdrawals abroad, while Clarity will be used for purchases abroad (better Mastercard rate) and in the UK (S75 purchase protection).

Supercard was a good idea, but too unreliable to be really useful

colin79666

Well after some success using it online and abroad earlier in the year mine now seems to be blocked. I can't make an online purchase in USD and calls to customer services are being hung up on!

Gloomendoom

sebtomato wrote: »

I have applied for a Clarity card now, so Supercard will only be used for cash withdrawals abroad, while Clarity will be used for purchases abroad (better Mastercard rate) and in the UK (S75 purchase protection).

Supercard was a good idea, but too unreliable to be really useful

That was our intention, as I posted above. However, the difference between the Visa and Mastercard exchange rate means that the Clarity wins for both cash and purchases.

What we intend to do is get a second Clarity and use one for purchases and the other for cash.

glider3560

Gloomendoom wrote: »

What we intend to do is get a second Clarity and use one for purchases and the other for cash.

Halifax told me (several times) that you are only permitted to have one Halifax credit card at any time and there must be three months between closing one and opening another.

Do you know if this has changed recently? As I also use Clarity for everyday spending, it makes quickly clearing overseas cash withdrawals quite a hassle as the statement balance must also be cleared.

glentoran99

colin79666 wrote: »

Well after some success using it online and abroad earlier in the year mine now seems to be blocked. I can't make an online purchase in USD and calls to customer services are being hung up on!

Try Twitter, mine was blocked sent me a new one

Gloomendoom

glider3560 wrote: »

Halifax told me (several times) that you are only permitted to have one Halifax credit card at any time and there must be three months between closing one and opening another.

Do you know if this has changed recently? As I also use Clarity for everyday spending, it makes quickly clearing overseas cash withdrawals quite a hassle as the statement balance must also be cleared.

I don't know if it has changed. The card I use at the moment is a second card on my wife's account. I'm planning to get card of my own (and a second card for her). We will use one account for cash and the other for purchases.

sebtomato

Gloomendoom wrote: »

What we intend to do is get a second Clarity and use one for purchases and the other for cash.

Not sure withdrawing cash from a Clarity credit card is better than withdrawing cash from a Supercard, despite the better Mastercard rate, as Clarity charges interest from the time the cash is taken.

Gloomendoom

sebtomato wrote: »

Not sure withdrawing cash from a Clarity credit card is better than withdrawing cash from a Supercard, despite the better Mastercard rate, as Clarity charges interest from the time the cash is taken.

It does, but if you pay off the balance as soon as possible after you have withdrawn it, the interest is negligible. For example, a month overseas for two people cost us about 75p in interest.

The problem is that you have to pay off the purchases too. Hence the desire for a second card just for cash withdrawals.

lah1308

I have had issues with an in store refund for £900 which was done in the US at the beginning of Dec, so a month ago. Originally the Supercard call centre said it would take 15 days but nothing materialized. The outsourced call centre don't appear to be able to rectify anything and I have received the standard "we will investigate and come back to you in 48 hours" response as well as being told my account was credited and the amount was used for future transactions I made which is BS! I have cross checked with my credit card statement and they all came off! How can refunds not work? I am clearly not the first person to request one.

Another ridiculous anomaly is that they say refunds WON'T show up in the app!!! Why the hell not?!?! I have now raised it via twitter, was told 48 hours which has now passed and still no update...

Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, 2 days ago £5000 worth of transactions came off the supercard in the US whilst I was using the card in Germany!!! Surely their fraud detection should pick that up like any other credit card company and raise alarm bells.

Again the call centre did not particularly fill me with confidence so I phone my card provider as well to make sure those pending transactions did not come off and that seemed to work.

I think the Supercard is an amazing idea when it works but when it doesn't it is a nightmare to resolve and seems like you lose a lot of the protection given by a standard UK credit card. A nice feature would be to place an upper limit on transactions per day within the app as then you could avoid some large scale fraud....

I may switch to Revolut as thats more of a cash wallet and thus can be controlled more and offers more damage limitation...