Holidays - travel cards?

itchy said:
Never stay all inclusive, that's for the peasants! :p



I might go there next year, I been for the day from Tenerife on the boat and the beaches where fantastic, also I liked the dolphins. :cool:

Oh and yes we stayed in Playa del las Americas on all 4 times we been.
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Lol so your budget was in no way comparable to the op's who is staying all inclusive! Thanks for the pointless post!

PS all inclusive is only for the peasants if your doing it wrong!
 
englishpremier said:
No it's not. You need a back up card too :p

Clarity if you can get it, though the creation card is cheaper.

For backup then the Revolt or Supercard (you get limited travel insurance with this too). The later is only for POS spending really.

Some people have mentioned Monzo (formerly Mondo), but that is unavailable to the general public yet. There was a beta test phase that closed a long time ago.
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clarity or similar CC as back up, revolut as the main, there is no cheaper than revolut.
no fees, no interest. easy to transfer money back out to bank account. theres is the £500 atm withdraw limit a month, but no limit on purchases. where clarity/other CC you pay interest on cash withdraws straight away.

and monzo though still a beta is still available, I installed the app, typed in details and 3 days later card arrived. That was like 3 weeks ago. So its not closed.
 
Glaucus said:
The other option is a credit card like Halifax clarity, but requires a good credit rating and take a bit longer to set up. but you do pay interest on (...), where something like revolut is totally free and even transfer the cash back to your account nice and easy.
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Not sure if you missed something out here. IIRC you don't pay any interest on foreign card transactions, only on cash withdrawals.

itchy said:
I kill 1500 euros in 7 days when me the missus and little one go to Tenerife.

I always take cash and a bank card as a backup just in case. ;)

Just take 1000 euros in cash and a bank card.
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Why are you buying food and drink in an all-inclusive hotel :confused::confused:
I think you're doing it all wrong...

EDIT: Also worst advice ever, why would you even consider carrying that much cash around? Do you nip out to the shops here with a grand in cash in your pocket? What if you got mugged abroad? Or your hotel room/villa/wherever got broken into, and your cash was stolen.

Where the majority of places in the world accept card (even 3rd world African countries) it's just not worth even carrying cash around.

englishpremier said:
No it's not. You need a back up card too :p
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A backup card is a bit over-cautious :P. I've been using my clarity card for many years without a backup card. Well i should say a cost-effective backup card. In the most extreme case i would just use a normal card and suck up the fees. Although my partner does also have a clarity card in the event that i lose mine whilst abroad.
 
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Glaucus said:
:confused:
you deleted it
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I only added (...) where i thought you missed out what you pay interest on.

You only pay interest on ATM withdrawals, not on card transactions. So if the OP only paid via card transaction they wouldn't incur any interest (assuming they pay their balance off in full).
 
You didn't specify what you pay interest on.

EDIT: Ah i see your second post now. I was referring to your first post where you just say "but you do pay interest on". Which for card transactions is not true.
 
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Although I am staying all inclusive, I do want the option of eating out rather than eating the hotel food, id maybe eat at the hotel 4-5 days out of 11. my money for all inclusive is going on the drink lol.

it was a £90pp upgrade from half board to all inclusive so we found it worthwhile and we would probably make the difference back after 3 or 4 nights drinks!
 
Glaucus said:
and monzo though still a beta is still available, I installed the app, typed in details and 3 days later card arrived. That was like 3 weeks ago. So its not closed.
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You're right. They re-opened it on 29th September.

Oddly despite being ahead of the queue I didn't get any notifications of anything from them about the new app.
 
Semple said:
Not sure if you missed something out here. IIRC you don't pay any interest on foreign card transactions, only on cash withdrawals.



Why are you buying food and drink in an all-inclusive hotel :confused::confused:
I think you're doing it all wrong...

EDIT: Also worst advice ever, why would you even consider carrying that much cash around? Do you nip out to the shops here with a grand in cash in your pocket? What if you got mugged abroad? Or your hotel room/villa/wherever got broken into, and your cash was stolen.

Where the majority of places in the world accept card (even 3rd world African countries) it's just not worth even carrying cash around.



A backup card is a bit over-cautious :P. I've been using my clarity card for many years without a backup card. Well i should say a cost-effective backup card. In the most extreme case i would just use a normal card and suck up the fees. Although my partner does also have a clarity card in the event that i lose mine whilst abroad.
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I had my first clarity card annoyance in holland a few months back loads of places won't take MasterCard as they charge the businesses a fortune! I took some cash out and used online banking to pay off the card that night but it was still annoying!
 
The problem with any of these Resolut / Monzo cards is the complete lack of protection.

I'm very careful with my cards, yet about a year ago I had a call from Halifax asking me if I was in NYC buying thousands of dollars worth of electrical stuff. I was in my bed 5000 miles away so they cancelled the card, the transactions never appeared in my OLB and I had a new card within a few days - total cost to me was 0 money and 0 hassle.

Had that been a Monzo card they'd have gone "Tough luck." and I'd have been out by about $4000.

Those cards offer no fraud protection, no section 75 protection and no benefits over a Halifax Clarity.
 
Peerzy said:
The problem with any of these Resolut / Monzo cards is the complete lack of protection.

I'm very careful with my cards, yet about a year ago I had a call from Halifax asking me if I was in NYC buying thousands of dollars worth of electrical stuff. I was in my bed 5000 miles away so they cancelled the card, the transactions never appeared in my OLB and I had a new card within a few days - total cost to me with 0 money and 0 hassle.

Had that been a Monzo card they'd have gone "Tough luck." and I'd have been out by about $4000.

Those cards offer no fraud protection, no section 75 protection and no benefits over a Halifax Clarity.
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nope, all matercard and visa cards are covered by chargeback rules set out by visa and mastercard.
and as such you are protected.
just like on a debit card on a pre paid credit card llike monzo you are not covered by section 75.
 
Glaucus said:
nope, all matercard and visa cards are covered by chargeback rules set out by visa and mastercard.
and as such you are protected.
just like on a debit card on a pre paid credit card llike monzo you are not covered by section 75.
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Visa and Mastercard charge back rules are very different to S75, they are nowhere near as effective in reality in helping the consumer.

I use my credit cards for almost all purchases without question for this exact reason and wouldn't consider using a debit card or pre pay card for any proper purchase, it doesn't make sense.
 
Peerzy said:
Visa and Mastercard charge back rules are very different to S75, they are nowhere near as effective in reality in helping the consumer.

I use my credit cards for almost all purchases without question for this exact reason and wouldn't consider using a debit card or pre pay card for any proper purchase, it doesn't make sense.
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then again, you don't know the rules section 75 doesn't cover anything under £100 or over 30k , so using chargeback is better for those amounts seeing as chargeback allows you to.
and as a day to day spending card, when do you ever pay more than £100? I mean even fuelling car is barely half that. As well as the different in value section 75 also doesn't work if you have an intermediary, like a broker, it has to be directly linked.

plus what you were actually talking about was stolen, which applies to any.
 
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Glaucus said:
then again, you don't know the rules section 75 doesn't cover anything under £100 or over 30k , so using chargeback is better for those amounts seeing as chargeback allows you to.
and as a day to day spending card, when do you ever pay more than £100? I mean even fuelling car is barely half that. As well as the different in value section 75 also doesn't work if you have an intermediary, like a broker, it has to be directly linked.

plus what you were actually talking about was stolen, which applies to any.
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So a Monzo card gives you the Visa / Mastercard charge back option.

A credit card gives you the above, along with S75 (and lets be honest, £100-£30,000 range is ideal for what you're likely to want to contest).

So how is a credit card not a better option?

A credit card puts the onus completely on the card company for literally any issues. A pre pay card is the complete opposite.
 
Peerzy said:
The problem with any of these Resolut / Monzo cards is the complete lack of protection.

I'm very careful with my cards, yet about a year ago I had a call from Halifax asking me if I was in NYC buying thousands of dollars worth of electrical stuff. I was in my bed 5000 miles away so they cancelled the card, the transactions never appeared in my OLB and I had a new card within a few days - total cost to me was 0 money and 0 hassle.

Had that been a Monzo card they'd have gone "Tough luck." and I'd have been out by about $4000.

Those cards offer no fraud protection, no section 75 protection and no benefits over a Halifax Clarity.
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For a start you'd have been daft to load one of these card with $4000. You can only lose what you put on it. Most people I imagine would just top up the card as they go along.

But yes section 75 offers more protection than using a regular debit card or prepaid card provided the purchase is over £100. However you still need to put in a section 75 claim (i've experience of this with Barclaycard). With a debit or prepaid card, you be able make a chargeback especially in the case of fraud, but yes it's not quite as straight forward.

One area where you'd win on the pre paid cards is being able to turn off the card or cancel it in the app when you are not using it. I've done this and it's fast and easy. So you'd never be in the position you describe. In that regard they offer more protection than a credit card. That and with some them you can easily get a new card sent out to you abroad if you lose it. Banks won't do that at all, they only send cards to a registered address. Can be a pain when travelling for any length of time.

All in all, it makes sense to have both types of card available to you if possible.
 
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