Taking Money Abroad Safely

There are a few different options when it comes to taking money abroad and these have changed in recent times.

Everyone is aware of traveller’s cheques and cash, though a newer option is pre-paid currency credit cards. These are run by the likes of Travelex and others and available at supermarkets in the UK including Tesco, Asda and others.

We opted for the Cash Passport from Travelex, which is a Visa Electron card. There are some great advantages to these cards and also some drawbacks, so here is a guide to some of these.

The Basics

1. When you first get the card, you can load as much currency on to this as you like, commission free. Subsequent loading can cost money, so put as much as you can/want on at the start. Sometimes, if you revisit the same place you got the card, you can load up again free of charge. The exchange rate I got was really, really good.
2. Make sure you log in and set the card up online before you leave the UK. You don’t want to end up messing around with this, as well as trying to get online and book hotels.
3. Some cards can only have a single currency. This means that if you visit Canada and America, you either need a multi-currency card or you need two cards.
4. You can load more cash onto the card several ways. The easiest is to make a payment online from your bank account using the sort code and account number they provide. You need to also make the payment to them using your own card reference number or they won’t know where to credit the money.
5. The card we used did not have a chip though many of the places we used the card didn’t have a chip reader anyway. They still use pin numbers and signatures.

REALLY Useful Tips

These are the basics and once the card is set up you are away. However, there are some REALLY important things to know when using the card including:-

1. When you use a card to book a hotel, they often take an additional ‘pre-authorisation’ for incidentals. These are in case you want to buy some room service and also to cover damage etc. They are refunded to your card when you check out HOWEVER. They aren’t refunded to your card for between 7 and 30 days.THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT If you are travelling for several weeks, the amount can build up. At one point, I had $180 still waiting to be refunded to the account. Here is the trick – when you make a reservation at a hotel, use another credit card BUT when you check out, pay on the pre-paid currency card. This way, you are only debited  the price of the room and the refunds come back separately.
2. If you use the card to pay for fuel, most if not every time we used it, the PIN didn’t work on the fuel pumps. This means heading to the kiosk to either pre-pay or to set up a pre-authorisation. Same as above, if you do this and then fill up a different amount, this will reduce the balance on your pre-paid credit card for at least 7 days. I would recommend going to the kiosk, paying for a set amount of fuel – say $40 and then filling up this amount. You need to get your estimate UNDER. I pre-paid $60 at one gas station and the total came to $56. The card was debited both these amounts and the $60 was only refunded on our final night in Canada, a week later! Had we stayed for only a few days, I would be heading home with money still on the card, requiring conversion back in the UK.

I know this sounds complicated but actually, if you follow the above advice, you will find these cards to be absolutely fantastic! Someone I knew told me that they had heard that they didn’t work everywhere, so they had decided not to use them.

They worked absolutely everywhere we tried them – restaurants, shops, hotels, gas stations and venues right the way across the United States, so this would be a definite recommendation. They are also cheaper by far than any other method of carrying cash and almost riskless. If you lose the card or it is stolen, they are fully insured and replaced. No brainer.

They even work online.