(See below introduction for links to all parts).
I get asked two questions more than any other;
- What travel money card do you use, and
- Whats your favourite country?
So, the best travel money card? Well more to the point the real question is how do you convert your hard earned dollar into Forex, at a good rate and pay no fees in doing so And weather its best to use a Debit or Travel card to do so. We’ll also look at Credit card offerings and along the way simplify some of the jargon financial companies use to sell them bad for something good.
And because I’ll be showing you the cards that I actually use and why, you know its the way to go!
A five part series on travel money and the best Debit and Credit card options, see Introduction for links to all parts as they become live.
- Read this if you wan’t to know about Interbank Exchange Rate, Spot or Headline rates and Buy/Sell rates and spreads. It will also explain some of the terms used in the other parts and how all of this actually affects you.
- Read this to see why a Visa or Mastercard backed Debit card is best and why locking in a rate via a pre-load Travel card is seldom a great deal (or just trust me and go to part three).
- Jump straight here to see what the best Debit (or Hybrid) cards are.
- (Jump here to see what the best Credit Cards are).
- How many cards to have, what types and why you should use a Credit card for all spend and consider your Debit card as the sacred one.
NB: As at date of publication not all parts are ready and if the links via the Introduction page are not live they’re still coming.
Disclaimer
I’m not your financial advisor or cccountant! I only have one client and he’s hard enough work as is it (as I also have to maintain his not insignificantly leet of Motorbikes).
But, I’ll share and recommend only what I use and if I don’t have it / use it / getting it then it’s not good enough for me and its not good enough for you.
And as final note, I’m not about to go into every detail on the products I use and recommend. But frankly I don’t need to as I’m going to give you the best options there are and focus on what’s really important –
- Market leading Forex conversion rates; and,
- NO (or the least you can get) FEES.
There are of course with every financial products certain fees, terms and conditions so you need to read each PDS and understand what you might be getting before you signup. But for me, these are the best offerings (at time of publication), the terms and conditions are simple and good enough for me, and the fees, well I NEVER pay fees, and by following the terms and conditions I NEVER pay charges either!
The Extra Disclaimer – for Credit Cards.
Applying for them WILL AFFECT your credit rating to some extent (however minor it might ultimately be) and Part Five will be looking into this in more detail, including how to apply for cards without doing damage, but nevertheless possible how this effects you needs to be considered, BY YOU.
More importantly tho, making only the minimum repayments will end up costing you ALOT more than the original purchase, and worse still not meeting minimum repayments WILL DAMAGE your credit rating.
So if you can’t repay in full DON’T even consider a credit card. That be just plain ordinary. Credit cards can however benefit your lifestyle and if done right they can really BENEFIT your lifestyle, so in the future we’ll I’ll look at this and how I utilise reward cards to further and better my travel, but for now it’s Credit Cards for Forex purchases and travel.