Prepaid Travel Cards guide

surfsister

Ian_morrow wrote: »

Do not use Revolut the customer service is terrible when something goes wrong. An hotel in Poland took a preauthorisation from my card on 7/7/19
I returned to uk on 9/919. The money has not returned despite providing Revolut with the evidence that it is with them . Their complaints team are not going to look at it till 19/8 and customer service is worse than useless
Best avoid Revolut

just get the free £10 and run!

surfsister

StigMergatroid wrote: »

Hi, I'm new to this forum and I have a question: I have about 600EUR in cash and I'm going to Spain in two months. Is there a euro payment card account which will let me load it with some of this cash in person over the counter, either in GB or Spain, without paying any fees? I don't fancy the idea of having all that cash with me on holiday, but if I'm going to spend at least some of it anyway I don't want to shell out a load of needless commission.

if you are going to Barcelona watch for pickpockets wear rucksack on front and don't leave handbags on floor in cafes or phone on table. lovely place but need to be vigilante.

pantaiema

For WeSwap If you just want to take advantage of £10 bonus after loading £51, is there anyway to take out all of the money (empty that account). For instance draw as many as you can from a foreign cash machine and then close the account to get the remaining balance to your current ac ?

MobileSaver

eDicky wrote: »

Get yourself a Starling Bank account on your phone

I've only skim-read the thread but is everyone basically saying pre-loaded travel cards are old hat and for holidaying in Europe the recommendation would be to open a Starling Euro account?

While in Europe you can then spend in shops and withdraw from ATMs and only pay a 0.4% conversion fee rather than the typical 2.99% foreign purchase? Or have I missed something?

EveryWhere

MobileSaver wrote: »

I've only skim-read the thread but is everyone basically saying pre-loaded travel cards are old hat and for holidaying in Europe the recommendation would be to open a Starling Euro account?

While in Europe you can then spend in shops and withdraw from ATMs and only pay a 0.4% conversion fee rather than the typical 2.99% foreign purchase? Or have I missed something?

What 0.4% conversion fee? Have you moved lock, stock and barrel, to an alternative universe?

https://www.starlingbank.com/travel/

If travelling around Europe, You can pop into a Metro Bank branch to obtain a debit card within the hour.

https://www.metrobankonline.co.uk/bank-accounts/i-want-some-information-about/using-my-card-abroad/

MobileSaver

EveryWhere wrote: »

What 0.4% conversion fee? Have you moved lock, stock and barrel, to an alternative universe?

https://www.starlingbank.com/travel/

Thanks, the fee was mentioned here:

https://www.starlingbank.com/current-account/euro-bank-account/

you can now hold, send and receive euros for free with a Starling euro account. With just a tap, convert between pounds and euros in your personal account, at the real exchange rate. All we’ll add to the conversion is a 0.4% fee

EveryWhere

MobileSaver wrote: »

Thanks, the fee was mentioned here:

https://www.starlingbank.com/current-account/euro-bank-account/

If you want to hold Euros, you can use a Revolut account.

Not every country in Europe utilises Euros.

Euro account is a way of locking in Euros at a certain price.

If you just want to spend in Euros or in any other currency, you go for the normal account denominated in Pounds.

Of course the whole Brexit debacle has more people thinking about buying foreign currency in advance.

They don't mention travel in their blurb;

Anyone who wants to hold euros in their bank account
Someone who gets paid in euros but is based here in the UK
People who need to send and receive euro payments
European expats who want to send money back home to friends and family
UK citizens who have property in Europe

.

eDicky

MobileSaver wrote: »

I've only skim-read the thread but is everyone basically saying pre-loaded travel cards are old hat and for holidaying in Europe the recommendation would be to open a Starling Euro account?

While in Europe you can then spend in shops and withdraw from ATMs and only pay a 0.4% conversion fee rather than the typical 2.99% foreign purchase? Or have I missed something?

Starling doesn't work that way for travel, in Eurozone or elsewhere. You don't need their euro account, which is currently just an additional account for holding euros and not useable with the Starling debit card. You just use the standard Starling GBP account and card which converts to local currency at the ideal MasterCard rate when used for purchases or cash withdrawals, with no fees or limitations.

And yes, preloaded 'travel' cards are definitely old hat and relatively bad value, often worse that just using your regular bank debit card overseas.

EveryWhere

eDicky wrote: »

Starling doesn't work that way for travel, in Eurozone or elsewhere. You don't need their euro account, which is currently just an additional account for holding euros and not useable with the Starling debit card. You just use the standard Starling GBP account and card which converts to local currency at the ideal MasterCard rate when used for purchases or cash withdrawals, with no fees or limitations.

And yes, preloaded 'travel' cards are definitely old hat and relatively bad value, often worse that just using your regular bank debit card overseas.

To be fair, if you take advantage of the FairFx extra £35 worth of currency offer and use the card optimally, it's actually a good choice.

Nevermind309

My wife has got a post office card and loaded money onto it, I have never used anything of the sort so am I right in thinking that the rate you get when you spend on it depends on that day, just like if you were changing sterling to euro on different days of the week with different rates?