Hi, I will be doing some travelling through Europe in a couple of months and the new crop of pre-paid cards with favourable fees look tempting.

Anyone here with personal experience of Monzo/Revolut/other?

Cheers.

Just got back from a road trip around Holland, Belgium and France, used a Monzo card and it was great. The iPhone app is brilliant and I just kept transferring £ onto the card via Apple Pay.

The exchange rate is as good as you’ll get and there are no transaction fees or cash machine charges. The app is brilliant as it tells you instantly the transaction amounts and even uses GPS to pin the location where you spent the money. Great for pub crawls!!

Only had one instance where it wouldn’t work in a small petrol station near Ghent. But fine for contact-less, normal chip & pin and cash machines. So all-in-all I’d highly recommend it, I wish my First Direct app was as good.

Good to hear, thanks for the input

Just put my toe in the water with Monzo but so far so good – card arrived within 48 hours.

As it happens I’ve looked at this – partly for us (currently with a Tesco travel cash pre-paid card, quite limited and various fees) and also for our son who is off to Denmark for a year. He will have or get a Danish bank account but useful to have a backup.

I was a bit overwhelmed by the complexity of the Revolut proposition – loads of cash jars – although it is at inter-bank exchange rate. We plumped for the Monzo variant – simpler – and son will be getting one as well..

Oh, and while Revolut has at inter-bank rates, the bad reviews were really quite bad – happens I suppose but it just seemed a bit fiddler to actually use.

What about the post office one, anyone use this:

http://www.postoffice.co.uk/travel-money/card

Curve and Revolut user here.

Both fine. The apps make them pretty easy to use.

Revolut is top-up and inter-bank. Curve is link to any UK debit/credit card and (I think) 1% charge for payments, but possibly higher for cash withdrawals.

If using Revolut, and you give it to your partner to use while away in Barcelona, make sure to switch off location based security (which in itself, is an excellent feature – uses your phone’s location and refuses payment if payment in different place to your phone). 😳

I’ve been living off a revolut card in Sweden since march as I still get paid in the UK. Set it to auto top up when I get below £50 and cant see how it could work any better to be honest!
Only place you will have issues is where you have to pre-pay using the pre-paid card e.g. self service at french fuel stations, but generally the attendant can open the pump up for post pay if you ask.

Edit, also I quite like getting a notification with GBP equivalent whenever I make a payment

I personally love using Monzo’s investor funds to get great overseas exchange rates – thanks all 🙂

I use a Halifax Clarity card. No FX fees or foreign cash machine charges; all done at the Mastercard exchange rate. Which isn’t bad.

Revolut user here. As flight crew I rarely take cash anymore and it’s saving me fees and hassle. Use it in UK as my normal card now too.

Pretty much everyone I work with uses Revolut now.

Revolut user here too for a lot of business travel over the last 2 years. Its been absolutely ace. And mobile app makes it easy to check balance and top up while waiting in Checkout queue 🙂

As I see it, Revolut has a slightly better exchange rate, and you can load up pots/jars with a variety of currencies (so, I guess, locking you in to a known amount of local currency rather than taking chances on rate at time of use). Mondzo possibly has slightly less good rate, but is simpler to visualise and good enough in many cases..?

I use a Halifax Clarity card. No FX fees or foreign cash machine charges; all done at the Mastercard exchange rate. Which isn’t bad.

+1

Can’t see the point of these other options TBH

If the Clarity is a credit card, do cash withdrawals incur an immediate interest liability?
You could I suppose pre-load it.

I used a Monzo card for a 2 week holiday in France last month, had no problems at all. It was a breath of fresh air to be able to use a card just like at home (no more scrabbling for change to buy metro tickets etc.).

The app was dead helpful when it came to managing spending, and we just topped it up from our debit cards every so often.

@Kcal, I pay GBP into my revolut card and just use it in whichever currency I need on the day. No need to preload USD unless the exchange rate is awesome on the day.

Martin Lewis says the Halifax Clarity card (I have one) is the best option for use abroad, better than pre pay, unlike standard credit cards you don’t get charged for taking money out.

A quick Google tells me 1 euro costs 0.89gbp on MasterCard and 0.88gbp on revolut. Hardly a big difference but it all adds up

Good to hear all your opinions, I have now got a Monzo card on the way, app was very easy to navigate and the process was quick and easy.

I may get a Revolut card as well, extra backup.

Jumping into this, has anyone used any of these in S America ( Chile and Argentina specifically) – any issues?

Anyone tried https://www.weswap.com/en/ – sounds a bit like TransferWise

On the back of this thread, I’ve just applied for a Monzo card. We go to europe at the end of this month, unfortunately there’s a large waiting list.

If anyone else is thinking of applying, and you would be so kind, can you use this link to bump me up the list. https://goo.gl/7oYWWo

You’re a love.

Little tip, you can skip the waiting list by entering your email here:

https://monzo.com/s/investorsgoldenticket/

I’ve got a Revolut card and it’s fantastic, feels so futuristic. The app is great, you get virtual bank account numbers for loads of different countries which could come in use (would be great if emigrating). Perfect exchange rate. I’ve topped it up in the queue for the checkout whilst abroad before and it’s instant. Instant notifications for transactions. Can send money back to my normal bank if I top up too much.

Only thing it’s no good for is pay at the pump fuel, but then i use my Halifax clarity (which I think does charge interest if you get cash out, comfyman),

If the Clarity is a credit card, do cash withdrawals incur an immediate interest liability?
You could I suppose pre-load it.

Yes the interest on it is immediate.
Plus withdrawing cash on a CC theoretically impacts your credit score http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/withdrawing-cash-abroad-credit-record

I’ve had my Clarity card 5 years but got a Monzo card for my last trip out of curiosity. For purchases the Clarity card was best, as I just pay it all off by month end to avoid interest.
For cash withdrawals where you need to pay immediately to avoid charges (or in the case of Monzo preload the amount on your card), I preferred the Monzo as the app is a pleasure to use compared to other banking apps. Just makes it that bit easier to pay it off. The usability of the Monzo app is so good that I’d seriously considering switching all banking to them when they launch current accounts.

If I was to only have 1 card, it would be the Clarity card, but if you’re happy having 2 I’d use Clarity for purchases and Monzo for cash withdrawals.

Little tip, you can skip the waiting list by entering your email here:

That’s mega. Cheers PJ266

Used Monzo abroad and it’s great. Also use it day to day as it’s better than anything else out there, will be moving to their current account as soon I can

I always used a combination of Clarity card and a Supercard, because each had it’s advantages.

Now Supercard is dead, I’ll stick with the Clarity. I’ll take the extra penny for section 75 protection.

various links to get Monzo ahead of Q – moneysavirngexpert has a link, as does backpacking website review if you do a Google search.

various links to get Monzo ahead of Q – moneysavirngexpert has a link, as does backpacking website review if you do a Google search.

As does this thread 😉

Another Monzo card here. It’s been faultless for the many months I’ve had it. Used it for the first time abroad in Holland last month. Had a couple of issues with it not being accepted. According to Monzo, this is something to do with pre-paid cards abroad, not Monzo themselves. Some places just don’t accept them.

My GF and I took a beta version of Monza away with us to Central America.
It got a few confused looks and interested questions but otherwise was brilliant. Highly recommended and saved us a fair bit of money on exchange fees etc.

Just a quick update, the Monzo card arrived this morning, activated it on the app and it worked exactly as it should at the post office and supermarket.

We’ll see how it fares through Europe in a few months time, thanks for all the replies.

I applied for a Monzo card via queue jumping MSE link on 29th June and got a message via the app that it should arrive on 3rd July. It still hadn’t turned up when I left on the 6th. Meh!

I’ve been using weswap. After an initial setup wobble – which their customer service sorted quickly, it’s been faultless.