Why cant i get a travel credit card?

jbrassy

MyRealNameToo said:

jbrassy said:

la531983 said:

Why does it have to be a credit card? 

Plenty of debit cards out there with 0% fees on overseas transactions. 

If you rent a car abroad you will be probably be required to provide a credit card for the holding deposit. 

But that doesnt need to be charged, if you incur fees ask them to put it to your debit card. 

Yes - if you incur costs after the rental has ended, you can pay them on a debit card. However, when you first pick up the rental car, they pre-authorise a credit card to cover the insurance excess. Most car hire companies do not accept debit cards for this purpose.

MyRealNameToo

jbrassy said:

MyRealNameToo said:

jbrassy said:

la531983 said:

Why does it have to be a credit card? 

Plenty of debit cards out there with 0% fees on overseas transactions. 

If you rent a car abroad you will be probably be required to provide a credit card for the holding deposit. 

But that doesnt need to be charged, if you incur fees ask them to put it to your debit card. 

Yes - if you incur costs after the rental has ended, you can pay them on a debit card. However, when you first pick up the rental car, they pre-authorise a credit card to cover the insurance excess. Most car hire companies do not accept debit cards for this purpose.

but if there is no actual charge going to be placed it makes no difference if there is a 0% or 500% fee for foreign exchange because no monies actually get taken. 

Most hire companies state it has to be a credit card however I always use a charge card and not one has ever rejected it. I have twice accidentally handed over my debit card when it looked similar to my chargecard, they asked if it was a credit card, I said no its a chargecard (as normal) they looked confused (as normal), ran it through and it was accepted. 

In principle they could setup their POS to not accept debit cards (and/or charge cards) but I've not encountered one that has. 

lr1277

There are one or two posts on here about people who have used a debit card to pay for fuel. If memory serves, when paying at the pump, the pump gets an authority for say upto £120.

This can cause problems if there are insufficient funds in the current account or if the authorisation is not released straight away.