Travelex Cash Passport (pre-loaded Mastercard)

[UKDEB]

Having had a substantial amount of cash stolen during our January 2008 trip, we're understandably reluctant to carry lots of cash these days. I like the idea of the pre-loaded cards, but I'm wondering if there's actually any benefit over simply keeping the money in our current account and using our debit card. Travelex themselves don't make a charge for ATM withdrawals, but their T&Cs state

* Some ATM operators may charge a withdrawal fee or set their own withdrawal limits - however, Travelex will not charge you a withdrawal fee on ATM transactions.

It's a Mastercard, whereas our debit card is VISA, and obviously the former would be $ and our current account, £. What are the charges for ATM withdrawals in the US and are there any banks which don't charge, or ways of avoiding the charge? Has anyone used the Travelex card and made ATM withdrawals?

 

[2Tiggies]

From what I understand it isn't the ATMs which charge on but the actual finanial institution backing the card you use. I didn't realise that Travelex doesn't charge an ATM fee but it is possible that Orlando area, being a prime tourist spot, has geared their ATMs to make a buck or two out of travellers! I am not much help in that department, having never used one there, but one way to avoid the withdrawal charges is to charge to the card with every transaction. There is no minimum spend, but obviously you would have to keep a close eye on your spendings or check them online regularly if you can.

Have you considered a FairFX card? No real difference, aside from a slightly better exchange rate and there is also no inactivity fee which you do need to watch with some of the others, unless you cancel the card when you return. Several folk on here have posted that they discovered when loading for a subsequent trip that their funds were significantly depleted due to monthly charges for inactivity.

 

[scottishgirl87]

We didn't find a fee-free ATM in Orlando unfortunately, although the usual charge was anything from $2-$5. I heard the one's at Walmart were possibly fee-free but we didn't make it there on our last trip.

This guide may help. It'll depend on who your debit card is with on how much you will get charged by them. For example, I have a Nationwide Flex Account that I use purely for holiday money, it used to be completely free to use but now they take 1%, which isn't alot really compared to most others!

 

[2Tiggies]

Another way to combat numerous withdrawal charges is to withdraw larger sums of money per transaction (and leave what you don't need securely in your room safe), but I would think that Deb would prefer not to do that based on the reason for her post I didn't even want to ask what happened ....!

I am a Travellers Cheque girl. But then, staying onsite there are never any issues using or cashing them. If you want to get about a bit, it is sometimes a different story.

 

[scottishgirl87]

Another way to combat numerous withdrawal charges is to withdraw larger sums of money per transaction (and leave what you don't need securely in your room safe), but I would think that Deb would prefer not to do that based on the reason for her post I didn't even want to ask what happened ....!

That's what we did with our FairFX. Withdrew quite alot so as to only pay the $2 fee as few times as possible. We simply left the money in the safe and took what we needed out with us. Same went with the card, left that in the room too most days unless we were going shopping.

 

[UKDEB]

Thanks for your responses so far. I should probably clarify our position. We'll use both a credit and a debit card for certain transactions, but we've found that it's easier to pay for some things with cash. Meals, for example - we much prefer to be able to simply get up and leave the cash, rather than have to wait for a card transaction to be processed. And, even when we do pay for a meal with a card, we always leave the tip in cash. We've always disliked Travellers Cheques and haven't taken any for years. We'll probably end up taking cash, but it just occurred to me that, if we could access cash on one of these pre-loaded cards without a fee, that would be ideal.

I didn't even want to ask what happened ....!

Our villa was broken into. We had around $1500 stolen, plus a brand new iPod which I'd bought the previous day. My brother and sister-in-law had a similar amount of cash stolen. We'd left it in the bedrooms, but the police officer who attended said they'd been called to the same villa the week before and the money on that occasion had been taken from the safe. When we looked at it (which we hadn't up to that point), we could see it had been finger-printed.

 

[wilma-bride]

Deb, I know you're asking specifically about cash withdrawals but just wanted to highlight one of the problems we had with the card which is that there is a non-usage fee. Basically, if you have a balance left on the card and you don't use it for more than 12 months, you get charged (I think it's $2.50) every month after the 12 month period until such time as you use the card again.

So, if you do decide to go down that route, just beware of leaving anything on the card at the end of your trip.

ETA: If Travelex states it doesn't charge a fee that is certainly a change in recent years as they most definitely did charge a fee when we got ours in April 2008 - it was $2 per ATM withdrawal and it was definitely charged by Travelex and not the ATM.

 

[igk]

From what I understand it isn't the ATMs which charge on but the actual finanial institution backing the card you use.

The ATMs themselves also can charge for withdrawals - there is a usually message that comes up saying something like "you will be charged $1.50 for this transaction. This is in addition to any charges made by your bank" - I can't remember the exact wording but it's along those lines. Sometimes however the charge can end up not being debited in the end (i.e. from the card account) - I don't really know why that is, but it may be that there is an agreement between the ATM company and the card company that isn't recognised when the card is used - presumably if it's non-US card - it's happened to me with my Citibank debit card from my USD account - the ATM says it will charge me then doesn't in the end. So it's complicated...

 

[VailaTigger]

We had the FairFx card for the first time this year, and I'd do it that way again.

Similar to the card you are asking about, in that there is a $2 charge to withdraw cash from the ATM (we used the one at our resort in Pop Century which had a $200 a day limit) but there is no inactivity fee if you want to leave it for your next trip. I think we only have a few dollars left on ours!

We used a mixture of cash, the FairFx card, and our Disney room key (which was linked to our UK credit card). The FairFx card gave us the best exchange rate, and it was of course all done at the one rate when we pre-loaded it, as opposed to whatever the rate happened to be on the day our credit card transactions were processed.

 

[Laurafoster]

With some debit cards you also get charged a transaction charge on top of the normal charges (visa handling charge etc). Its worth checking with your bank as most have partner banks the waive the transaction charge -

http://www.personal.barclays.co.uk/...=pfs&task=popup1group&value=4534&target=_self

 

[2Tiggies]

Just thought I would add, I use my FairFX card for internet purchases in US$. Just another consideration if you like to order things to be delivered to your resort/prepay PhotoPass, etc.

 

[fuse04]

Hi Debs, for the last trip we opened a Citibank Doallr account in the UK which has no charges to operate the account, however we used it as a debit card so not sure if they charge for ATM's; might be worth looking into.