Prepaid Travel Cards guide

eDicky

My belief is that Monzo had no particular intention to be regarded as a 'travel' card at first. Until a year ago there was no visible mention of their being fee-free overseas and I had to ask on their chat about fees and exchange rates. So it's likely that they never factored in the substantial cost of all the users who subsequently made lots of fee-free overseas ATM withdrawals. Their only revenue, the interchange fees etc when the card is used for purchases, was not enough to cover the unexpected cost and survive, without introducing the foreign fee-free withdrawal limit.

Starling have seen this happen to Monzo and others, so may have taken it into account, being a full bank from the outset with other potential revenue stream. But if enough people like Trevor use them solely to withdraw foreign cash I can see them also having to introduce limits/fees at some point.

Topcat2007

My son & gf are off to New York for NY. Earlier this year they went to Orlando & had dreadful problems with their PO prepaid travel cards not being accepted, or card machines voiding transactions. It was both of their cards, so not a rogue card. In the end they took all the cash out in one go - not the safest thing to do, but they were desperate. Can anyone tell me if they have used a pre paid card in New York without problems. I don't think fees or exchange rates are their main concern - they just want ones that work! Thank you.

odieuk

Up until today I had a cashpassport euro card (that was issued by Sainsburys) and a cashpassport multi currency card (that was issued by tescos. In both cases, i asked for a second card for a secondary user - this being my mother. This would allow us to both top up the cards when/where we liked. both cards ultimately end with the same company which is R. Raphael & Sons.
i had nothing but problems with both cards - especially with the websites and loading more money. passwords became a major problem. however, use abroad in shops, drawing money from ATMs was easy peasy. as others have stated, use at petrol stations - both Europe (Spain) and USA - would NOT accept the cards. For car hire extras at depot - on collection i would give them a regular credit card, but tell them on drop off i would use a different card and apart from a problem at Denver, this worked extremely well in US and Europe.
Today when attempting to load the multi currency card - it kept locking me out of the website, and then refusing mums debit card to top up. Yet again i had to phone the company. only this time, they told me that the extra card linked to account was only in my name and no top ups etc allowed from mum. using a possible scenario, I asked what would happen if i was in Philippines (i knew call centre was there), no cash, no access to website, no way to topup etc, and whether they would accept mums debit card with her phoning it thru....response was NO!
i asked how come Tesco had sold me this product, 2 forms signed and filled out etc, yet now after 2 yrs of use and website top up problems, they were now making it even more useless! so i asked to close the account, which they agreed...went through all the blurb blah blah, and then they said - on top of crap exchange rate - their would be a charge of £6 to close account! i went mental...and asked for a Manager to deal with this. Within 2 mins i was advised NO £6 charge!
Ultimately this turned out to be a HUGE mistake having this card with all the problems....what is wierd is that the single currency card allows two linked users, but not multi currency!
so i am now on the search for a good alternative. we go away sunday, so know its too late for this trip (i do have a santander zero).
any good suggestions please gratefully received..

eDicky

Use your Santander Zero, as you should have been doing instead of paying dearly to use the likes of Tesco and Sainsbury cards, even using your regular bank debit cards overseas would have likely cost you less.

Jude49

My son is going on a college trip to New York three days after his 18th birthday and I am trying to find out the best method of paying for things without taking loads of cash.
Does anyone know if there is an 18 age limit to apply for cards - prepaid or otherwise?
Thanks

gettingtheresometime

Jude49 wrote: »

My son is going on a college trip to New York three days after his 18th birthday and I am trying to find out the best method of paying for things without taking loads of cash.
Does anyone know if there is an 18 age limit to apply for cards - prepaid or otherwise?
Thanks

Revolut has an 18 age limit as would your standard credit card.

Having said that though I can’t see how revolut would know if you gave your Revolut card to your son to use.....though I’m not advocating that though lol.

I’ve used mine in Europe as well as Australia & New Zealand and had no problems in either using or topping it up - even hubby was impressed!

EveryWhere

Jude49 wrote: »

My son is going on a college trip to New York three days after his 18th birthday and I am trying to find out the best method of paying for things without taking loads of cash.
Does anyone know if there is an 18 age limit to apply for cards - prepaid or otherwise?
Thanks

https://www.nationwide.co.uk/products/current-accounts/flexone/whats-flexone

Once he has it by seventeen, he can keep it beyond eighteen, up to the age of twenty three.

No forex fees nor ATM withdrawal charges.

Sunshinemummy

gettingtheresometime wrote: »

Revolut has an 18 age limit as would your standard credit card.

Having said that though I can’t see how revolut would know if you gave your Revolut card to your son to use.....though I’m not advocating that though lol.

I’ve used mine in Europe as well as Australia & New Zealand and had no problems in either using or topping it up - even hubby was impressed!

Flip GTST, did not know you were an expert in this area :T:T:T

Advice (from anyone) would be greatly received (idiots format is preferred as I am doh!).

We are going to Thailand for nearly 5 weeks with a few days to Singapore, (DS1's wedding) and need to figure out what is the best cards to use. We would normally try to put the expenses on a credit card, but on reading it looks like debit card maybe more cost effective (we will need to put some expenses on a credit card as we don't have enough money).

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

SSM

:):):):):)

eDicky

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/travel-credit-cards

Also https://loot.io/

Note that ATMs in Thailand charge Bt.220 (£5) for use of a foreign card.

EveryWhere

Sunshinemummy wrote: »

Flip GTST, did not know you were an expert in this area :T:T:T

Advice (from anyone) would be greatly received (idiots format is preferred as I am doh!).

We are going to Thailand for nearly 5 weeks with a few days to Singapore, (DS1's wedding) and need to figure out what is the best cards to use. We would normally try to put the expenses on a credit card, but on reading it looks like debit card maybe more cost effective (we will need to put some expenses on a credit card as we don't have enough money).

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

SSM

:):):):):)

If you have the right credit card, such as Halifax Clarity, Creation Everyday, Santander Zero and Barclaycard Travel Platinum, some banks will allow to to take a cash advance over the counter, avoiding the ludicrous £5.70 ATM withdrawal fee levied by Thailand's ATM network on foreign VISA/Mastercard cards.

.....and get one or two of these; https://www.starlingbank.com/travel/