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I have just ordered my first FairFX card, the card is free and I loaded it with £50 worth of € at the time of ordering so got me €61.22, very good rate at £ = € 1.2245 on Tuesday last.

FairFX also give you £5 bonus when loading with £500 or more.

As for loading, so long as you can get on the interweb, there is not a problem, we will just pre-load the card before we go in anycase, as will only use the FairFX card for drawing cash out at ATM's.

All other purchases will be made with a Halifax Clarity Credit MasterCard, so no commision/exchange charges.

The FairFX card seems to be the best of the bunch at the moment, as is the Halifax Clarity Credit card.

Andy

There have been many forums on this subject and at the end of the day it comes down to choice.

Personally I do not own a Credit Card, so I have therefore opted to use a Caxton FX perpaid card, you can load 3 ways Internet,phone and SMS with a rate today of over 1.24 to the £

The only problem with using a Debit card is that each transaction will cost you in excess of £1.50.

The Caxton card is free you do not by it, you pay a one off payment of £10 and this is added to your account when you first load the card. so loading £100 will actually give you £110 in euro's

Regards

Quote: Originally posted by Boycieb on 18/5/2012

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Andy

The only problem with using a Debit card is that each transaction will cost you in excess of £1.50.

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Aparantly your money is safe with a pre-loaded FairFX card as it is held in a ringfenced account with a UK building society which is regulated by the FSA.

Whether that means you could still draw cash out with your FairFX card whilst on holiday, should they go bump remains to be seen!.

My take is to just load it with cash for incidentals, and use a none comm credit card for all other none cash purchases.

So if the worst did happen, you could resort to using a regular debit card for getting cash out.

What you have to ask youself is which is the bigger risk, walking around with a wadd of cash large enough to choke a donkey in your pocket, or the chances of FairFX loosing your money for you?.

Quote: Originally posted by bridgeywidge on 21/5/2012

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Oh, don't forget the little issue of the 'shadowed funds' which could affect use of the pre-paid cards... we fell foul of this. When buying fuel or paying a deposit, some banks will 'shadow' the amount you owe, effectively doubling the ££ of what you've just bought and taking that off your card... OK for credit cards, in theory but, with a pre-paid without a limit, except what you've loaded. this could mean that next time you go to use it, you find that you don't have enough 'free' money on your card to pay ... (I think I've explained this right ). So, we now use our credit card for fuel but use the pre-paid for shops and meals etc and for withdrawing cash.

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A mix of credit card for any larger transactions, currency ordered before you go and withdrawing cash using debit car has always worked for us for regular holidays. Obviously the longer you go away for the more of an issue it can become i guess, balancing safety with convenience.

Whilst funds are ring fenced it doesn't mean you will necessarily be able to get hold of them instantly if a curency exchange company went under so as someone quite rightly says above - don't put all your eggs in one basket. Even if you don;t want a credit card at home - having one for foreign travel just makes so much sense. Just set up a direct debit to pay off balance in full each month and its the same as using cash but much safer for carrying around