pre-paid card. US Dollars

[Roger645]

I use a Fair FX card for Euro travel and am off to Puerto Rico in March, What's the best card for Dollars? Someone said Caxton is a good choice, any recommendations?

Thanks

[Geoff Stilwell]

Take American Express dollar travellers cheque..they are accepted everywhere and are safer. Available from your local bank

[chopper602]

Geoff Stilwell said:

Take American Express dollar travellers cheque..they are accepted everywhere and are safer. Available from your local bank

+1

I took travellers cheques (aswell as cash) to the US last year and didn't have any problem using them in shops and getting change in dollars.

[telecat]

Had a bad experience with the Pre-Paid cards. Despite guarantee's that they could "replace the card in 24 hours" they reckoned it would take a couple of days when it did go missing when My son was on holiday. Luckily his mate had another card and they "allowed" us to transfer it. In the US I now just take Cash and a Credit Card.

[maser_spyder]

Positive review for Caxton. Nice thing is, you can get a second card which shares the balance of the first one.

If you get the global one, it's not limited to dollars either, so you can keep using it anywhere you go.

I only got new because every time I sniffed aboard, my bank put a fraud stop on my card and I was calling them to unblock it about every two weeks, which was incredibly expensive and frustrating. Turns out Caxton is a LOT cheaper too.

[Captain Cadillac]

Just use your bank card in ATMs there... Or your credit card. Tends to get you a rather reasonable rate as well.

Oh, and empanadas, have some empanadas.

[maser_spyder]

Captain Cadillac said:

Just use your bank card in ATMs there... Or your credit card. Tends to get you a rather reasonable rate as well.

Oh, and empanadas, have some empanadas.

Crazy advice. Most UK high street banks charge a small fortune for using your card abroad. The best used to be Nationwide, no charges and a good exchange rate, but they moved to charging a couple of years ago, even though the rate is still pretty good.

This is quite a well known banking scam, it's horrendously expensive to use a normal high street bank card anywhere abroad.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-trav...

I worked out that on a two week holiday, spending a couple of thousand pounds, you could easily spend £150 - £300 in bank charges (£2.50 - £3.00 every time you use the card, PLUS the currency % loading / poor exchange rate).

Caxton, or Mytravelcash, or any of the other few out there cost NOTHING to use abroad, and you get a better exchange rate too. The cost of the card is minimal (sometimes free), about the same price as a couple of cash withdrawals abroad, so it's hardly expensive to set one up.

I would choose Caxton (visa) over Mytravelcash (mastercard), although both work well, Caxton shares the account balance across both cards on an account (You + partner), which means you can top up the balance and share it between the cards. Mytravelcash, although you can have two cards, have separate account balances that can't be shared, so you need to top them up and spend separately.

One down-side of Caxton is if you use the card in the UK to withdraw any unused funds after your holiday, they charge you for using the ATM. I'm a regular traveller, so this doesn't bother me too much, I'll just spend it next time I'm away.

The only drawback I've found with Caxton is that their website login doesn't work with an iphone, so it's not possible to top up when out and about. Their website does save your topup card details though, so as long as you can get online and know your CSV number, you can top as normal. I topped up mine in the Apple store once.

Martin Lewis has loads of info on this;

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-trav...

[Heff]

Geoff Stilwell said:

Take American Express dollar travellers cheque..they are accepted everywhere and are safer. Available from your local bank

For Puerto Rico I wouldnt use travellers cheques. We were in the USVI last summer and the banks all limited the amount you could cash each day. So pretty much the fist thing we had to do each day was go to the back and stand in line to get money. Very boring.

Also the biggest bank on St Thomas is Banco Popular, based in Puerto Rico.