FairFX (and other pre-pay) cards - what if you lose it?

[steve_rob]

Trying to persuade my wife that she should use a pre-pay currency card instead of taking travellers cheques this year - I've always been a cash and no-fee credit card man myself, so it's only her I need to convince.

She's happy to do this (especially given the amount of places TC's aren't being accepted nowadays), but raises one issue that I can't find a clear answer to: what happens if you lose your card?

From reading the FAQ's on FairFX's site and others, you can ring up the company and get the card cancelled, and when you get home the remaining balance will be refunded, but what do you do for cash for the rest of your trip? The one major benefit of TC's was the promise that they would replace them for you while you were still on holiday, so you'd only be out of pocket for the 24 hours it took to get them replaced (and hopefully you'd have enough cash to tide you over this period anyway).

So as I can't find a definitive answer on the web, I thought I'd ask here to see if anyone had been in the unfortunate situation of losing a pre-pay card abroad and what options were open to them when they reported it missing.

 

[Goofyish]

One option is to have an additional 'Family and Friends Card', I can transfer money from you main card to the Family and Friends Card - giving you a bit of a backup.

 

[Melcatfish]

As per the above, get a second card and Fairfx will transfer the balance if you lose the card.

Mel
x

 

[mackay_j]

Be very careful re the friends/ family card- I have one of these and my DH lost his wallet, as a result we reported the card lost and then could not move any money about until the new card arrived (were not on hols so didn't matter). Therefore I now know that if that happens move the money to the other card BEFORE you report your card lost.

 

[steve_rob]

Thanks guys, that's good information to know.

To be honest it had crossed my mind about the possibility of getting multiple cards, mainly because it fits in with the way DW likes to use her travellers cheques - she'll just take a certain amount out of the room safe at a time and leave the rest so you don't risk losing everything (or more like, spending everything!) at once.

Might therefore get two or more cards with say $500 on each and then if the worst happens, we haven't lost everything and can still transfer balances as well.

 

[penlanspice]

We do the same, we have our main card and also a friends and family card, if I were to lose one I have the other as back up and can transfer the funds.

You need to make sure the additional card is a friends and family card (I think the charge is $6) if you set up a whole new card then you can't transfer funds etc.

 

[Girlsontour]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/a...ler-Can-cash-passports-really-save-money.html

Article in todays Sunday Mail - worth reading.

 

[NicolaFred]

Get a CaxtonFX card instead. It allows you to have several cards per account.
We used this instead of our FairFX card (which we used in 2009) last year, however, this year we got a better rate in cash generator than online so were taking cash instead.

 

[orangetiggs]

I was looking at the others but none are as good of a rate that fairfx so might stay with them