Tandem vs Halifax Clarity for foreign travel?

niktheguru

With the tandem card you will still get paper Bill's home. But you're right you cannot access the account information online and can only access it via the app. The card itself does have contact less and it works fine but you cannot use the cintactless via your smartphone

Hope that helps. I dont have any personal experience with the creation or the other cards but the Halifax is a great alternative if you didn't want the tandem card.

18cc

I had both the Tandem and the Halifax card both worked very well and I like the cash back on tandem

however tandem did fail me on two occasions both were at petrol stations - not pay at pump but regular cashier - they did not go through I had to pay with Halifax

Also I tried tandem with pay at pump and could not get it to work but Halifax did

otherwise both have been great I have close d my Halifax account but that was only because I didn't really need it

NoodleDoodleMan

This is the best credit card for foreign travel.

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

Nobody else offers fee free ATM withdrawals as well as for paying for goods and services etc.

Halifax Clarity is the best backup option.

gt94sss2

NoodleDoodleMan wrote: »

Nobody else offers fee free ATM withdrawals as well as for paying for goods and services etc.

While the Barclaycard is a decent option, there are several cards which offer fee free ATM withdrawals as well as on goods/services.

One disadvantage of the Barclaycard though is that it uses Visa which generally has slightly worse f/x rates than Mastercard.

studentsaver_88

I have Tamdem, Aqua and Halifax. When I was in Bulgaria there were 3 places Tandem was not accepted. Always worth carrying a backup in my view.

18cc

Yes it is always worth having a 'major' credit card when travelling as a backup.

NoodleDoodleMan

While the Barclaycard is a decent option, there are several cards which offer fee free ATM withdrawals as well as on goods/services.

I'm not aware of any other credit card that currently offers both fee free ATM and goods/services transactions.

Please point me in their direction.

chattychappy

The real answer is to take both, and more if you can (even if standard CCs with their fees).

Fussing about a few pence here or there is insignificant compared with the costs of getting money transferred by Western Union, taxi to the embassy, or simply not being able to do what you want to do because a card is failing. So much easier to pull out an alternative card than spending valuable time dealing with a call centre.

Over the last 20 years I've sent long periods overseas, sometimes for months on end.

Cards get lost, stolen, blocked, rejected. Weird things happened. For some reason, if I used my Santander Zero card in the HSBC machines just outside Saigon's airport it would block. I'd get one shot. Block - use - unblock - use - block. Not with other cards. But Clarity did a similar thing with a local electronics/hifi shop near my place in Taipei.

It's so handy if you can just try again with a different card.

And as I say, cards can get lost, stolen or even damaged or expired. Receiving a replacement whilst travelling can be complicated.

For long trips, I typically have 5 or 6 cards. For shorter trips (less than a month), usually 3. If you're travelling with someone with cards, then that's a useful backup.

Here's my trusty list:

Halifax Clarity - foreign cash at ATMs, backup for purchases
Santander Zero - foreign purchases, backup for cash
Nationwide Select - further backup for purchases
Post Office - further backup for purchases
Barclaycard - further backup for cash
MBNA - expensive, but high limit - useful for emergencies.

Cards do fail more often when overseas. Bear in mind that anything that relies on an app could give you problems if you have your phone stolen.

mastutio

Just to check, this thread talks about 'foreign travel' spend.

Am I correct in assuming everything said still applies if physically sitting in the UK but purchasing goods overseas in a foreign currency?

The reason I ask is I recently discovered Curve does not give Section 75 protection so I am looking for a credit card I can use to book hotels and travel in a foreign currency but keep Section 75 protection.

binaryuniverse

mastutio wrote: »

Just to check, this thread talks about 'foreign travel' spend.

Am I correct in assuming everything said still applies if physically sitting in the UK but purchasing goods overseas in a foreign currency?

I believe so. I've bought tickets for future events, on the continent, with my Clarity card, with same results as if I purchased them in that country.

Same with goods I've bought from Amazon in France, in Euros.