Prepaid Travel Cards guide

WAYT

Grogsy83 wrote: »

Hi,
I'm off to Australia in 4 weeks, stopping off at Dubai there & Bangkok coming home for a few days each. I don't really want the hassle of the Halifax Clarity. After reading through some of these pages it looks like 2 currency cards is the way to go, I'm just unsure of which. Maybe Monzo & FairFX?
When in Australia we will be driving down the east coast for a few days so I'm not sure what connectivity will be like for the app cards

Thailand ATM will sting you for £5 each time. You won't like that, so take out all the money that you think that you will need at once or take out a wedge of cash in Oz before you leave and exchange it at the airport, here; https://www.superrichthailand.com/#!/en/exchange#rate-section.

"App cards" work regardless of whether you have access to the application.
Nevertheless you can pick up SIMs at the airport in Oz and Thailand.
http://www.optus.com.au/shop/mobile/prepaid

http://truemoveh.truecorp.co.th/international_service/visit_thailand/en 49 baht £1.12
https://www.dtac.co.th/en/prepaid/products/tourist-sim.html 49 baht £1.12

Don't be tempted to buy their crappy tourist packages.
Top up and choose from here instead:

http://truemoveh.truecorp.co.th/topping/index_en.html
https://www.dtac.co.th/en/prepaid/products/go-no-limit.html

Monzo
https://loot.io
https://www.starlingbank.com

PeacefulWaters

I don't really want the hassle of the Halifax Clarity

I know. It's awful presenting a card for payment that always gets accepted and is simple to pay back via online banking.

Gloomendoom

Grogsy83 wrote: »

Hi,
I'm off to Australia in 4 weeks, stopping off at Dubai there & Bangkok coming home for a few days each. I don't really want the hassle of the Halifax Clarity.

What hassle?

Grogsy83

I mean the hassle of applying for a credit card and the rate you might get, plus having to pay off the balance regularly whilst away. Not using it to pay for things.


Thanks WAYT for your reply, very helpful. I'll get a Monzo card, is there a one you would recommend between Loot and Starling?

WAYT

Grogsy83 wrote: »

I mean the hassle of applying for a credit card and the rate you might get, plus having to pay off the balance regularly whilst away. Not using it to pay for things.


Thanks WAYT for your reply, very helpful. I'll get a Monzo card, is there a one you would recommend between Loot and Starling?

Starling Bank

Monzo is actually the most limited, as it has only £1000 of ATM withdrawals per month. Loot has a higher limit, but only 2 free withdrawals per month. £1 after that.

Grogsy83

WAYT wrote: »

Starling Bank

Monzo is actually the most limited, as it has only £1000 of ATM withdrawals per month. Loot has a higher limit, but only 2 free withdrawals per month. £1 after that.

Ok thanks again

bsgbees

So we took out the halifax clarity card as suggested by Martin Lewis but we've ended up needing more cash than expected as many places in the Algarve (Amarco de Pera) only accept cash.

The best rate we can find is £1 - €1.01. One bank was offering £1 - €0.96. I feel a bit conned. Is there anyway to boost our money?

Pedrobandito

I have just got myself a Monzo card but I am a little worried just in case it doesn't work when I am away for whatever reason, if I also got a Starling card could I top up the Monzo from that and vice versa if one didn't work?


I cant think of any reason the Monzo wouldn't work I just want to cover all the bases.

Gloomendoom

bsgbees wrote: »

So we took out the halifax clarity card as suggested by Martin Lewis but we've ended up needing more cash than expected as many places in the Algarve (Amarco de Pera) only accept cash.

The best rate we can find is £1 - €1.01. One bank was offering £1 - €0.96. I feel a bit conned. Is there anyway to boost our money?

Find an ATM and use your Clarity card to withdraw the cash.

The exchange rate is likely to be close to 1.14

Gloomendoom

Pedrobandito wrote: »

I cant think of any reason the Monzo wouldn't work I just want to cover all the bases.

I can think of a couple of reasons:

1. Not everywhere accepts Mastercard (see my post #884 above)

2. I had a message from Monzo one day last week advising me to use another card for that day as their system was down.

You should never just rely on one card.