Best Pre paid travel cards.

JoeF1

JoeF1

JoeF1

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West Yorkshire
Hey guys.

So going to NY in December and i was going to take just cash but the GF isn't all that comfortable lugging that money around etc for the week, guess she has a point so i have been looking at the Travel cards.

Has any of you guys used these in the US? Any feedback would be great. I keep seeing the fairfax card pop up with just a few dollars charge if i need to withdraw money. Anyone used this before? Shouldn't be a problem as we have added in walk around cash but you never know.

Thanks guys.
 
Trying to avoid Credit cards due to previous bad credit and don't want no more declines on my credit report screwing up my mortgage attempt in a few years time.
 
Surely thats the optimal reason to get a credit card and just be sensible to try to help?

Although i'm not sure if you'd get the Clarity card with bad credit.
 
We took Thomas cook prepaid mastercards to Spain / France, they will offer you a poor rate if you don't go prepared though, (we were offered €1.18 when everyone else was offering €1.23 about 8 weeks ago - it's even better now.), we queried their rate and said everyone else was offering 1.23,. they matched it, then if you put £1000 on a card, they give you £50 of currency free too. (We got €1280 for £1000 back then.)
 
I just took my bank card and normal credit card, they do have ATMs in NY you know.

Worked it out and paid about £15 in fees total.
 
I used a Sainsburys Cash passport when I was in Australia. It's a pre paid MasterCard. The only thing I would say is that you should set up online topups before you leave.
 
I have a Caxton FX that seemed legit (only got it in case I had issues with my CC) which I took on a long road trip to the US, worked fine.

Only thing I would say, don't expect to be able to pickup a hire car with one (most car hire companies require a credit card)
 
We used CantonFX when we went to Amsterdam a couple of years ago. Free top ups, no commision and a good rate.
Though I did use my debit card in the US a few years ago and barely paid any fees, so that's always an option.
 
I swear we get these threads every year :D

Credit Cards are the easist as they're accepted everywhere in NY.

I took my Santander Zero card and had 0 problems out there.

Applying for a Credit Card and getting rejected is not going to make a huge dent in your Credit Score and it won't affect a mortgage attempt in 2+ years time!
 
I use a MyTravelCash card - http://www.mytravelcash.com/
Mine's a multi-currency card so I can use it just about anywhere.
It's loaded in sterling and when used abroad it uses the MasterCard rates. https://www.mastercard.com/global/currencyconversion/index.html

However if it's inactive for a year they start charging each month. The easy way to get around this is to withdraw a small amount of sterling in the UK. There will be a small charge for this, but it's less than the monthly charge and also stops the charging for another year. As yet I've not had to do this because I've been travelling.
 
Used CaxtonFX in France last winter, was one of the couple top recommendations on MSE. Preference depended on whether you were mainly interested in using ATMs or at POS, Caxton with no fees for the former.
 
I used https://iceplc.com when I went to florida this year. Worked absolutely fine when paying for things and you don't get any charge for withdrawing money (although the cash machines will still charge you $2).

Works like a visa debit card so when you have no money that's it, you can still top up online though and when your holiday is finished you can withdraw money if you still have some on there.
 
Casdawer said:
I swear we get these threads every year :D

Credit Cards are the easist as they're accepted everywhere in NY.

I took my Santander Zero card and had 0 problems out there.

Applying for a Credit Card and getting rejected is not going to make a huge dent in your Credit Score and it won't affect a mortgage attempt in 2+ years time!
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I think there was only 1 place that accepted cash only when i was in NY last year. Clarity card is the best if you can get one. Avoid other cards that charge you for transactions and ATM withdrawals. Maundie mentioned paying £15 in fees, which is way more than £0 so not really worth going for those.
 
Marvt74 said:
Surely thats the optimal reason to get a credit card and just be sensible to try to help?

Although i'm not sure if you'd get the Clarity card with bad credit.
Click to expand...

My credit report is that bad that i have only just managed to get a Luma card. I doubt i could get any decent CC to take out with me and we have the money in cash. So i don't see the point in getting credit if a preloaded card was just the same.

Maundie said:
I just took my bank card and normal credit card, they do have ATMs in NY you know.

Worked it out and paid about £15 in fees total.
Click to expand...

The fee's seem quite small. Looking on MSE my debit cards in the card from hell bit. Whoops.

Terminal_Boy said:
Have used Travelex Cash Passports for years on overseas holidays and they've worked exactly as advertised.
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Been looking at this too. Offer a decent rate. What the usual lead time a transfer would take to be transferred to use? Is it just like a bank transfer and instant or more old school 3 business days? (Just thinking in case we get stuck).
 
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Caxton FX all the way.

Found when I was in the USA 2 years ago some places were 'funny' with cards that had no name on them and got quite bored of explaining what it was. Caxton is one of the few that print your name on it, and I'm pretty sure you can get more than one card per account so its useful as a backup or if the better half wants one.

You can get cashback on caxton thro a few of the popular cashback sites too.
 
JoeF1 said:
My credit report is that bad that i have only just managed to get a Luma card. I doubt i could get any decent CC to take out with me and we have the money in cash. So i don't see the point in getting credit if a preloaded card was just the same.
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The Aqua Reward credit card has no FX fees and is targeted at bad credit, so you should have a reasonable chance at acceptance. It'll be expensive if you take cash out on it, but as others have mentioned, almost everyone takes card over there. Icing on the cake is that you'll earn 0.5% cashback on any purchases, so it's even better than free.
 
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