Travelex Supercard vs Halifax Clarity card

Si67

I'm a bit confused as to why the Travelex Supercard is considered better than the Halifax Clarity card, even for cash withdrawals.


The Supercard gives the perfect Visa rate, whereas the Clarity card gives the perfect Mastercard rate.


According to the Visa and Mastercard websites respectively, yesterday 12th May 2015, the Visa rate was 1.36893, whereas the Mastercard rate was 1.392835.


This is based upon the assumption that these figures provide a true like for like rate comparison. Please comment if this isn’t the case – to be fair, the difference does look a bit on the large side. Anyway…


For a cash withdrawal of, say 1000 Euros, the Clarity card would have charged £717.63, whereas the Supercard would have charged £730.50.


For cash withdrawals, it is true that the Clarity card charges interest from the day of withdrawal to the day the money is repaid, but the rate is typically only 12.9% APR, which is about 1.075% per month, or 0.248% per week.


If you repay the Clarity card back immediately, there would be no interest to pay, so the Supercard transaction would cost about £12.87 more than it would have with Clarity.


If you repay the clarity card back a week later, there would be about £1.77 in interest to pay; meaning that the Supercard transaction would still cost some £11.09 more than it would have with Clarity.


Even if you left it a whole calendar month before repaying the clarity card, there would only be about £7.71 interest to pay, meaning that the Supercard transaction would still cost some £5.15 more than it would have with Clarity.


So, with these figures (which, as I said, might not give the whole story!) you would therefore have to delay repaying the Clarity card for over 50 days before that cash withdrawal becomes as expensive as the Supercard!

chattychappy

That's a big difference between the Visa + Mastercard rates. Hadn't realised it was that great - I wonder if it's always skewed that way. Didn't think it was.

Aside from that, the disadvantages of the Supercard for me are:

1) "management" issues - another card to carry, two transactions to check for every withdrawal/purchase.

2) no S75,

3) seems I have to mess around with apps.

But routing purchases via Supercard in order to pick up miles/points on CCs seems handy. My current non-loaded cards don't give points/miles.

BlondBoy

Really interesting analysis on the rates, that. Thanks Si67.

I see it more as a complementary card (that's why I'm getting one). Fair few countries I've been where Mastercard acceptance (at retail and ATMs) was patchy. With the Supercard, you've got a Visa that's still better than a 'domestic' card. If I had the Supercard too while spending a year in Latin America, it would have saved me quite a bit for that reason.

So, for me, it's not either/or - more 'which should I use?' And your analysis may well lead me to pull out the Clarity first...

Si67

I thought it was I big difference too. Maybe they report the rate differently, for example, one reports the average for the day whilst the other reports the closing rate. I don't know.

Anyway, Martin saying that the Supercard is better is what confused me.

Si67

The analysis was really just arithmetic based on the figures given. The more I think about it the more I think the figures must be misleading, or at least not a like for like comparison.

adindas

I do not think the figure from Si67 is correct if this was the comparison between Visa and MasterCard global exchange rate. If this is the case, I am pretty sure there must be some mistakes in comparing those figures or it does not refer to the same time span, or the figure are just comparison between travellex (using their own conversion rate) VS Clarity card (e.g Mastercard global exchange rate)

For the benefit of all and for the purpose of discussion, I will tell my personal experience.
I have been using both cards e.g Visa and Mater) simultaneously all the times and I could tell you that the different is very tiny. Keep in mind that Master card do not update their exchange rate during the weekend or Holidays. so the figure that you are comparing could refer to a different dates. Also both Visa and Master might update the exchange rate more than once in a day. So if you browse in the morning you might get a different result if you browsed in in the evening. What I have found is that sometimes Visa is slightly better sometimes MasterCard is better but the difference is very tiny. I remember there has been a lot of discussion about this and people are telling their own finding. The conclusion is sometimes Visa is better sometimes Master is better.

Here is the sample figures from my personal experience that I have been recording, which i took it from directly from my records for £/EUR

April 6, 2015 Master 1.354464, Visa: 1.3640699999
April 7, 2015 Master 1.369489, Visa: 1.3551999999

On another occasion
April 24, 2015 Master 1.385723, Visa: 1.3939200000
April 27, 2015 Master 1.397267, Visa: 1.3867700001

JUST CHECK IT TODAY May 13, 2015

May 13, 2015 Master ???? Visa: 1.3838900001
The Master card for today figure has not been published so if you see the current exchange rate is from the previous date. Some people are making mistake when reading this table.

Si67 wrote: »

I'm a bit confused as to why the Travelex Supercard is considered better than the Halifax Clarity card, even for cash withdrawals.


The Supercard gives the perfect Visa rate, whereas the Clarity card gives the perfect Mastercard rate.


According to the Visa and Mastercard websites respectively, yesterday 12th May 2015, the Visa rate was 1.36893, whereas the Mastercard rate was 1.392835.


This is based upon the assumption that these figures provide a true like for like rate comparison. Please comment if this isn’t the case – to be fair, the difference does look a bit on the large side. Anyway…


For a cash withdrawal of, say 1000 Euros, the Clarity card would have charged £717.63, whereas the Supercard would have charged £730.50.


For cash withdrawals, it is true that the Clarity card charges interest from the day of withdrawal to the day the money is repaid, but the rate is typically only 12.9% APR, which is about 1.075% per month, or 0.248% per week.


If you repay the Clarity card back immediately, there would be no interest to pay, so the Supercard transaction would cost about £12.87 more than it would have with Clarity.


If you repay the clarity card back a week later, there would be about £1.77 in interest to pay; meaning that the Supercard transaction would still cost some £11.09 more than it would have with Clarity.


Even if you left it a whole calendar month before repaying the clarity card, there would only be about £7.71 interest to pay, meaning that the Supercard transaction would still cost some £5.15 more than it would have with Clarity.


So, with these figures (which, as I said, might not give the whole story!) you would therefore have to delay repaying the Clarity card for over 50 days before that cash withdrawal becomes as expensive as the Supercard!

Si67

I checked the figures based on yesterday's date, 12th May (because as you say, Mastercard don't publish 'today's').

I think the only way to do an accurate comparison is to try it with both cards and see what you get charged.

I've actually been trying to get a Supercard all day, but as others have reported, registration keeps failing. If this is indicative of their systems' reliability, maybe I'll just give up and stick with Clarity.

Edit: Just received an email from Travelex saying my registration was successful (even though the app indicated otherwise! ). We'll see how they compare.

adindas

Si67 wrote: »

I checked the figures based on yesterday's date, 12th May (because as you say, Mastercard don't publish 'today's').

I think the only way to do an accurate comparison is to try it with both cards and see what you get charged.

I have done this all the times and other people have done that as well. The conclusion is as above.

Keep in mind that there is a great sudden boost for Pound since a few days ago. So those figure does not actually reflect the steady state comparison between Visa and Master ...

chattychappy

I did some side-by-side tests 3 or 4 years ago and didn't see much difference. Been lazy since then.

I often check the rate I get on the screen with "oanda" and the rate is always close to the interbank rate.

Si67

Right then, now the Mastercard rates for 13th May are in, the figures are a lot closer.

Visa 1.3838900001
Mastercard 1.384993

For our cash withdrawal of 1000 Euros, this time the Clarity card would have charged £721.69, whereas the Supercard would have charged £722.60.

The difference is therefore only 91p, which sounds more like it. This is still in favour of Clarity, but you'd have to pay it back within 2-3 days to be even (fairly easy though if you have mobile internet banking, and you'd need a smartphone to have a Supercard anyway).

The figures for 12th May do indeed seem abnormal. Just unlucky if you recently bought something on Visa and the transaction was posted on 12th May!

Just for reference...

I got the Visa rate from here
http://www.visaeurope.com/making-payments/exchange-rates

and the Mastercard rate from here
https://www.mastercard.com/global/currencyconversion/

adindas

The difference between Visa and Master exchange rate in steady condition has always been so tiny. People will not be able to say that one is better than another. This figure has been confirmed by few people in this forum which include me.

If you bother to observe everyday for a duration of one month (say) at a different time (e.g morning, afternoon, evening), you will find that sometimes Visa is better than Master but sometimes visa versa.

They use the same reference e.g inter bank exchange rate. But the exchange rate of Visa and Master might be different as they might be updating their exchange rate at a different time during the day. The inter bank exchange rate is changing several times in a day as the currency are traded by currency traders all the times.

If you see the difference is high this is because that is a transient figure. It could be due to sudden economic or political change which cause the currency in that country could jump up and down significantly within hours. As Visa and Master do not update their exchange rate as often as the interbank exchange rate, this could cause a significant difference between the two.

Si67 wrote: »

Right then, now the Mastercard rates for 13th May are in, the figures are a lot closer.

Visa 1.3838900001
Mastercard 1.384993

For our cash withdrawal of 1000 Euros, this time the Clarity card would have charged £721.69, whereas the Supercard would have charged £722.60.

The difference is therefore only 91p, which sounds more like it. This is still in favour of Clarity, but you'd have to pay it back within 2-3 days to be even (fairly easy though if you have mobile internet banking, and you'd need a smartphone to have a Supercard anyway).

The figures for 12th May do indeed seem abnormal. Just unlucky if you recently bought something on Visa and the transaction was posted on 12th May!

Just for reference...

I got the Visa rate from here
http://www.visaeurope.com/making-payments/exchange-rates

and the Mastercard rate from here
https://www.mastercard.com/global/currencyconversion/