Pre-paid cards are an ideal way of taking money with you when you go abroad on holiday. They offer easy access to your money, security, reassurance and often quite good exchange rates too.
Certain Pre-paid travel cards are designed specifically for use when you travel, and these are available in Euro or US Dollar currency as well as UK Pound Sterling. This makes it much easier to manage your available balance when you’re on holiday, and normally means you will avoid paying foreign exchange rate fees.
Using a pre-paid card abroad provides an easy method of paying for things as all pre-paid cards are backed either by MasterCard or Visa, and therefore are accepted in thousands of locations world wide. They use the chip and pin security system too, and because they’re designed for use abroad, the charges are very much lower than if you were to use your own credit or debit card abroad.
Pre-paid cards also offer security in another way. Because you pre-load a pre-paid card with money before you spend it, there is no way that anyone can gain access to your bank details via this card. So if it were to be lost or stolen or cloned while you were away, you would only have the card to worry about, not your bank details. Many pre-paid travel card issuers offer emergency card or cash replacement facilities, so you wouldn’t be left without your holiday money if the card was stolen either.
Pre-paid cards have another advantage when it comes to holidays. They can be easily used online or in stores to book flights and hotels, and in some cases this can actually save you money as certain pre-paid cards don’t incur charges that are incurred with other forms of payment when you make purchases with certain companies. One very good example of this is using a MasterCard pre-paid card to purchase your flights with Ryanair meaning that you can save up to £6 per person per flight (that’s there and back) in booking fees. So for a family of 4 people, that would be £48 saving instantly by using this method.
In addition to all of the above, pre-paid cards can be obtained by many people who would have difficulties in obtaining a credit card. This is because there are no credit checks required as you’re only ever spending your own money and not being issued any credit.
