Visa Debit

[chriscpritchard]

VISA is for 18+ iirc.

Maestro/Solo can be held by under 18s. I have come across websites before that have been a PITA as I was trying to buy something online that is minimum 18 age and they said a maestro is not proof of age I had to email scan ins of passport or my driving license.

VISA>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Maestro/Solo

I'm under 18 and have a VISA Debit (Barclays)

 

[Glaucus]

Not quite sure whats with the maestro bashing. I can honestly say i've never had any issue using mine.

it's good, but visa is better..

 

[Luseac]

it's good, but visa is better..

Why?

 

[LordSplodge]

I like my Maestro card.

Out of my cold dead hands HSBC!

On the other hand...

 

[saddler]

Again: My debit card worked fine in Las Vegas and LA just last november, as well as a friend of mines.

My experience was varied, I was also in vegas. I could pay my hotel bill and most meals but some resturants and shops like levis I had to use cash. The only atms that would work were in the casinos. This was over a year ago so perhaps they are getting better.

 

[MagicBoy]

HSBC is switching to VISA Debit as it is taken in more places world wide than Maestro. It should make traveling around Europe easier - I couldn't use my Maestro card in many places in Germany for example and was sick of people say they took VISA.

Weird. I've not heard anything from them.

I've never had any problem using Maestro abroad in the last 5 years, even the USA. Before that it was a bit more difficult - specifically got a MasterCard for a Europe trip in 2000 as a lot of places in Germany didn't accept Visa at the time.

 

[philjohn]

I beg to differ, I have one as a "back up card" on an old but account, Could use it to buy tickets at Bristol stations about 2 months back, and there's quite a few places that specifically say they won't accept electroncs, for example Virgin trains wont accept them on their onboard shops.

The only reason they are not accepted on trains is because they cannot do a realtime authorisation with the acquiring bank, which is required if you wish to accept Visa Electron cards. Once we see them upgrading their equipment to use WWAN this will most likely change.

 

[York]

As has been previously mentioned Visa Debit uses the same clearing system as Visa Credit Cards, and so in theory anywhere that accepts Visa Credit Cards will also accept a Visa Debit Card.

This makes it much much better than Maestro as internationally it'll be much easier to use