travelcards abroad (debit/credit cards)

[mrcharly-YHT]

What are people's experiences of these? One of the offspring is heading off travelling for some months, very sudden decision with little time to organise anything and his current bank is very expensive to use abroad.

[trekker12]

We use them abroad - Thomas Cook Eurozone version, they do a 7 currency one as well. I find them very useful. You can manage the account online and if you need to top up it's instant up to €750 transfer per day.

Check the terms and conditions, our Thomas Cook one recently updated to charge for using ATMs but I believe the Sainsburys one doesn't at present. You should be able to find a comparison table on the web somewhere.

The exchange rates seem reasonable. You have to use them once a year to keep them valid.

[rr]

We have fairFX cards, ours are Euro ones but I think they do other currencies as well.  They have a decent exchange rate and work well.
The main advantage for us is that you can get a friends and family card for a child over 14. This is an additional card in the other person's name that they can use and you can monitor and top up in more or less real time online or using a phone app. Balances can be moved between cards at will.
This is very useful in avoiding the girls having to take large amounts of cash on school trips and exchanges "just in case."

Sent from my XT1562 using Tapatalk

[Gattopardo]

Look at money saving expert...I have a metro bank account for this as well as a citi bank account.  Cheap no frills and free.  No overdraft facilities as well.

[chrisbainbridge]

We have a Revolut card on the basis of our resident financial expert(son number 2).

This is internet based but a full MasterCard. You load it in pounds but it does all exchanges at the interbank rate and you pay in dollars, euros, whatever.

Topping my up is simplicity itself. Essentially acts as a prepaid card but can be topped ad infinity.

[Plug1n]

If you are going to somewhere that freely accepts credit cards (like supermarkets in France), then I can recommend a Post Office Platinum credit card - very close to inter-bank exchange rates and no transaction fees.

In 6 months in France, I've used about 300 Euros in cash, all the rest on MasterCard/Carte Bleu.

Most of the cash went on taxis, but since I got mobile data working, Uber avoids even this need for folding stuff.

[Jaded]

I used to have Travelex cards. Two cards, one account. Useful in Europe but a pain to access the usage details and top up. Also they expired with a small amount of money on - now lost.

I looked at the money advice website and went for a Halifax Clarity MasterCard. No fees for using aboard, plus as a BoS customer it shows on my internet banking. It's been great.

[mrcharly-YHT]

The travel destinations are; Lithuania, Canada and Australia

[Aunt Maud]

then I can recommend a Post Office Platinum credit card - very close to inter-bank exchange rates and no transaction fees.

Thanks for the tip off on the PO credit card.

[Morrisette]

A word of warning about Australia - my in-laws took a pre-paid card there a few years ago and it would not work in any of the local banks ATMs. They could not access the money at all. I think they eventually found one machine (or possibly had to go inside and do some laborious over-the-counter transaction) that worked in one town but meant they had to keep going back there as the card had a low daily limit so they couldn't just take all the money off the card when they found out how useless it was. They would have been in a spot of trouble if they hadn't been staying with relatives. I would personally not reply on one of those cards after their experience.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Ty - thanks for the warning - I'll do some research into that.

When I went to the USA in 2001 I found it similarly odd in shops. No we don't take Visa, don't you have an American Express? Cue trip to an ATM which would spit out $100 bills. Then the shop would refuse to accept $100 bills. Too many are counterfeit or something.

[TPMB12]

We had the awkward issue of debit cards not being taken in most cars machines. We had to withdraw from cash machines only. That was the Netherlands. Credit cards or local bank debit cards I think only worked.

[Jaded]

The USA largely does swiping. It was like going back in time.
Canada does a lot of contactless.

[ian]

Chip and pin (and even contactless) is slowly sneaking over the border into Trumptopia. Slowly. It wasn't that long ago that you could only use your own bank's ATM (and many of the banks were still local), at least not without hefty withdrawal fees.

The only place I've ever had an issue with Visa/Mastercard badged debit cards is Japan where they only work in particular machines on alternately particular days. And only if you do a kitten dance in front of its CCTV. They broadcast these as Foreigners Do The Stupidest Things every night after the news. Of course, any Japanese person will deny this, but then of course they would. They also deny inventing Hai Karate, which frankly is still the best man perfume there is. Brut, pah. It's Hai Karate all the way for me. Smell fragrant and not like a vagrant is my motto.

[mcshroom]

I've been using a Revolut card as my main card for the last 6 months. It works very well including in Ireland when I was there, and I'm impressed with the ability to enable/disable card features such as contactless, internet transaction or the magstripe immediately using the phone app.

The only negatives I've found are that it won't do pay at pump at petrol stations, and it charges 2% on cash withdrawals after you go past £200/$200 etc. per calendar month.

[tiermat]

I would have recommended Monzo, had they just announced, this week, that they are going to start charging for overseas ATM withdrawal. Payments are staying free but banks are starting to hike up the cash machine costs, especially for alien cards, so keep an eye on what the others do (like Revolut etc)

[mcshroom]

I would have recommended Monzo, had they just announced, this week, that they are going to start charging for overseas ATM withdrawal. Payments are staying free but banks are starting to hike up the cash machine costs, especially for alien cards, so keep an eye on what the others do (like Revolut etc)

Revolut have already cut their monthly allowance from 500 to 200 in the last year or so because of the ATM charges, so I wouldn't be surprised if it got cut more.

[MikeFromLFE]

Although I've only used it once in foreign parts, the Curve card is looking promising. It allows you to link the Curve card to any other (non-Amex) card, so you don't pay the parent card's exchange fee, but the charge gets passed to the parent card as a normal sterling transaction. The Curve Card people claim a good rate of exchange and no fees.
It is technically a 'business debit card' which may affect how foreign machines see it; it certainly affects the charge that merchants pay when you use it (I don't use it in small shops or family businesses). Equally when you apply for it you have to be a small business or a freelancer- aren't we all freelancing at something these days?