Prepaid holiday cash cards: any experiences?

[Pommier]

Congratulations on the bursary Master Betty!

[Chancer]

When i was travelling in 2004 I mainly relied on my ATM cards but took $2000 in travellers cheques just in case, i only used them once I think, probably a couple of hundred dollars as I soon found that in places off the beaten track where there were no banks I could not use travellers cheques either so I resorted to carrying lots of local currency.

On my return I took a severe haircut on the remaining dollars, commission fees even though there werent supposed to be and I returned them to where I had bought them from, but mainly because the dollar had dropped significantly against the pound during that year (story of my life), I had no access to media or news that year but I am guessing that George Bush being re-elected didnt help much [:(], I can recall some Americans being aghast at one point, possibly in Fiji.

The travellers cheques and currency was hidden away in the lining of my backpack together with my passport and it turned out to be a good cache as when I was reported as missing the Capetown Police searching through my things to contact my next of kin couldnt find anything at all

P.S. a five dollar charge for a prepaid card doesnt sound expensive, one cant really compare it with the UK where everything is "free" but some people are paying through the nose for it. look at how much bank charges are in France, in any case after my experience I reckon its safer to keep the money in £'s

[YCCMB]

[quote user="Pommier"]Congratulations on the bursary Master Betty![/quote]

Thank you Pommier! He's v. excited. I'm maternally proud, of course.

[Gardengirl]

Betty, we've had a Caxton card for a couple of years now and find it

very useful. It's a euro one, and we've used it all over France (we don't seem to get anywhere else these days!) in hotels, B&Bs, restaurants, shops etc. It works like any other card,

was easy to set up, and as far as possible we've carefully chosen the

date of putting more money on to it so as to get a good rate - you see

the rate when you log in to transfer cash; to me it seems the best way

forward for your son. Congratulations to him and to the proud parents -

hope he has a wonderful experience.

[YCCMB]

Thanks so much GG. I was hoping there might be someone else who had first hand experience who could offer advice. It all seemed almost too good and easy, I felt there must be some obvious downside that I had missed, but your experience confirms what I thought and read.

He's a lucky boy. I offered to carry his bags but nothing doing!

[WendyG]

I have a prepaid mastercard card loaded with euros from the Post Office which is accepted at supermarkets, hotels, fuel stations, restaurants without any problem in France.

I have had the card for some time now and it can be loaded up with more euros on the internet as required and I am assured that it will be rapidly replaced if lost.   

Ha ve always found when trravelling it is best to have a mix of "currency" available - ie bank card, prepaid card, cash, traveller cheque. 

[dwmcn]

Betty,

I forgot to say that my wife had a Travelex card, but like the campsite card we had you had to make sure you had money left on it when using it, unless you had put millions of pounds on it. We now just use our debit cards, even though it might cost a bit more to do so, because we know how much we have in our bank accounts. Of course if you are buying one for someone with no cards of their own, that is a different matter, but it could still run out of money.

David

[dwmcn]

Anybody,

Just one more interesting thing, well I find it interesting, before I move on. Within the last few days I received a few unsolicited emails wanting me to sign up to other travel cards that I had never heard of. I won't mention their names because that woud just provide them with more publicity. I could get free- of-charge cards that changed pounds into euros in exchange (ha ha) for information about my bank accounts. (Like getting millions of pounds from a Nigerian millionaire in exchange for bank info.) I assume it was because of what I said here. When I scroll on another forum I use, I get ads for holidays in France because I mentioned that we holiday in France quite often. Now we all know that websites/blogs/forums are not as secure as they think they are and there are always people sniffing around for bits of info that other posters give out that can then be taken to google to find out more about them, that will lead to being able to email them hoping they will email in return, thus providing their email address to try to sell them the Brooklyn Bridge. (Yes, it can happen.) So beware of unsolicited email. I usually report them to my provider as spam.    

David