Prepaid Travel Cards guide

Sunshinemummy

Gloomendoom wrote: »

You do need to get your travel insurance sorted as soon as possible. It should really have been done when you booked the first component of your trip, or before.

You risk losing a lot of money otherwise.

If you need any advice on Singapore, I may be able to help. I was there last week.

I will get it done either tonight or tomorrow.

What cards do you use in Singapore?

Our schedule so far is:

We arrive on the Thursday lunch. Book in hotel 2. Wedding 4. No idea what afterwards

Friday is free

Saturday it is 'the Singapore wedding meal'

Sunday is free - with flight back to Thailand at 6 pm.

Any suggestions for our free days would be greatly appreciated. We will have our two adult (I use the term adult loosely) with us, and at time the bride and groom.

And a rather random question I have been looking at what women wear to Singapore weddings.... when I googled it, everything was like my gran would wear. Any ideas? I would like to leave my fascinator at home!

EveryWhere

eDicky wrote: »

You made me think that the fee has been raised again already, but I checked four banks' ATMs this evening and they are still charging Bt.220 (£5.05) - ludicrous enough, but perhaps the pound is stronger since you last looked.

However I did notice that Kasikornbank offered me a DCC rate of 40.09 (mid-rate now 43.64) on the same screen as the fee warning. So there were three options - Proceed With Conversion (with fee) / Proceed Without Conversion (with fee) / Cancel. Perhaps the other Thai banks also offer DCC on the next screen after you accept the fee, I was not going to risk proceeding to find out.

Revolut is not so useful in Thailand because their normally perfect interbank rates are not applied to Thai baht.

Saw that, but forgot to correct it. I was thinking in Euros at the time.

Though as you state, £5 is ludicrous enough. Cash advance over the bank counter with credit card and in some cases, Starling Bank card is the way, if you don't have Pound notes to exchange.
Watch out for the odd dodgy bank that adds an Admin Charge for a cash advance over the counter. Siam Commercial might do this.
ATM is just a joke in Thailand, unless you have a fee free card that allows you to withdraw at least £500 in one go, in order to limit your losses to around 1%.

Sunshinemummy

EveryWhere wrote: »

Saw that, but forgot to correct it. I was thinking in Euros at the time.

Though as you state, £5 is ludicrous enough. Cash advance over the bank counter with credit card and in some cases, Starling Bank card is the way, if you don't have Pound notes to exchange.
Watch out for the odd dodgy bank that adds an Admin Charge for a cash advance over the counter. Siam Commercial might do this.
ATM is just a joke in Thailand, unless you have a fee free card that allows you to withdraw at least £500 in one go, in order to limit your losses to around 1%.

Does this card exist?

TIA

Gloomendoom

Sunshinemummy wrote: »

Does this card exist?

TIA

The Halifax Clarity should allow you to do it if your credit limit permits. You will pay interest though.

For Singapore, I use a Starling Bank debit card or a Halifax Clarity credit card. You probably won't need much cash as most places accept cards. If you intend to eat in the hawker centres as we do, cash still seems to be preferred.

There is plenty to do and see in Singapore itself. I would particularly recommend the boat trip leaving from Clarke Quay but do it at dusk. If you like shops take a walk down Orchard Road. Another attraction well worth a visit is the Gardens in the Bay. We have also gone across to Sentosa Island a couple of times but, unless you are desperate for a swim as we were, or like Butlins/theme parks, I wouldn't really recommend it. The cable car does give good views of Singapore though.

I'm not really qualified to comment on wedding attire I am afraid. Googling "singapore wedding etiquette" brings up a few hits.

The other thing that occurs to me is that you first day is pretty full on if you haven't had a chance to get over the jet lag.

Sunshinemummy

Thanks, I have applied for the Halifax Clarity already, and have had a little read of Starling, I will look further into this.

We are staying on the Quay, so the boat trip will be lovely. I think I am the only woman in the world that hate shopping - it is my idea of hell.

I will have a look at Gardens in the Bay and the cable cars, but avoid Sentosa Island - it sounds like hell.

I have been reading about the etiquette of weddings for months, I think I have got my head around it, well I have copious lists. I am rather anxious as we are a rather down to earth and easy going family, and although we have been together for 30+ years, we never married. The Bride is lovely - more than we could wish for, but they have said that her family are extremely religious and argue about everything and anything, they have attempted to separate them, I don't think they discuss/negotiate anything - but they brought up a wonderful lady so they must have some wonderful aspects to their personality (I keep reminding myself of this but I am have to admit that I am still rather miffed that her father refused to give his blessing as he is white and not a Christian).

We are in Thailand for a week before going to Singapore (to be with our son before the wedding as the bride has to be in Singapore for a period of time before the solemnising part), we have the meal there, we then return to Thailand for the beach wedding aspect.

With all the stress, I now remember why we never got married!

Thanks for your help x

EveryWhere

Sunshinemummy wrote: »

Does this card exist?

TIA

Halifax Clarity and Barclaycard Travel Platinum( 0% interest on purchases for 12 months from the date you open your account
No non-sterling transaction fees on your foreign spend and ATM withdrawals until 31 August 2022. After this, the fee returns to 2.99%.)..

So if you need to spread the cost out, the Barclaycard might be helpful.

https://www.barclaycard.co.uk/personal/credit-cards/platinum-travel-credit-card

Sunshinemummy

EveryWhere wrote: »

Halifax Clarity and Barclaycard Travel Platinum( 0% interest on purchases for 12 months from the date you open your account
No non-sterling transaction fees on your foreign spend and ATM withdrawals until 31 August 2022. After this, the fee returns to 2.99%.)..

So if you need to spread the cost out, the Barclaycard might be helpful.

https://www.barclaycard.co.uk/personal/credit-cards/platinum-travel-credit-card

Thanks I have applied for the Barclays as well and remember to not do non sterling transactions. The 0% for 12 months will get me over the sticky patch, so I won't need to faff with opening another and transferring the balance to a 0%.

So with the Clarity and Platinum I think I am sorted (although thinking about it I may get OH to get a Platinum as a safety net).

:T:T:T:T:T:T

I had a double bonus today, as my friend rang to say her house is sold and she is moving to her mums for a year whilst her new house is ready. I offered her our house for the 5 weeks we are away as respite. She offered to have the dog. Bonus, house and dog looked after.

EveryWhere

Sunshinemummy wrote: »

Thanks I have applied for the Barclays as well and remember to not do non sterling transactions.
Always chose to pay in the local currency.
The 0% for 12 months will get me over the sticky patch, so I won't need to faff with opening another and transferring the balance to a 0%.

So with the Clarity and Platinum I think I am sorted (although thinking about it I may get OH to get a Platinum as a safety net).

:T:T:T:T:T:T

I had a double bonus today, as my friend rang to say her house is sold and she is moving to her mums for a year whilst her new house is ready. I offered her our house for the 5 weeks we are away as respite. She offered to have the dog. Bonus, house and dog looked after.

You are confused about this. You can and should do non-sterling transactions whilst abroad. With all of the aforementioned cards.
Always choose to pay in the local currency.
The caveat with the Barclaycard is that only 30% of the available credit balance can be utilised for cash advances.
But you might have the Clarity for cash advances, so perhaps not an issue.

Sunshinemummy

EveryWhere wrote: »

You are confused about this. You can and should do non-sterling transactions whilst abroad. With all of the aforementioned cards.
Always choose to pay in the local currency.
The caveat with the Barclaycard is that only 30% of the available credit balance can be utilised for cash advances.
But you might have the Clarity for cash advances, so perhaps not an issue.

Totally confused. So I always chose local currency. I need to write an idiots guide and keep it in my purse!

It is very helpful to know about the 30% cash advances. I will need to see what credit limit they give me, I may need to think of something else. I've read a lot about the cash advances, but not much about using a card to make normal purchases in Thailand.

I now have travel insurance, starting from today, and I even booked the kids parked, so I can breath and start to plan aka panic about clothes/suitcases and the gifts. 7 days in Benidorm seems attractive at this moment!

Sunshinemummy

I've just 'advised' our adult boys about the cards for travel money - sounded like an expert.... thanks for all your help, huge amount of stress off my shoulders, now just to sort the baggage and clothes out!