TRAVEL MONEY CARDS

Tesco Customers Should Opt for a Travel Money Card

Tesco credit card customers are being warned that using their card abroad may be an expensive means of payment. Find out how a travel money card can help.

Tesco Finance imposes an extra charge of around two percent or more on top of the headline foreign exchange rate fee of 2.75 percent per transaction, The Guardian newspaper has revealed.

On a £167 purchase a holidaymaker would end up paying a further £4 over what would be charged on a rival card, and if a card holder spends £1,000 on holiday, an extra £20-30 could be imposed on top of the commission.

Someone using a travel money card however will miss out on these charges as the exchange rate fee is set at the rate available when the money was loaded onto the card.

Although the Tesco credit card has a MasterCard logo, Tesco sets their own exchange rates and do not publish them on their website, instead customers are required to call up the company to check.

According to figures from a Datamonitor report Brits spent £12.8 billion on credit cards last year and this extra two percent loading fee could add up to an extra £12.3 million a year.

Travel Money Cards

If you are planning on going abroad this winter and were considering using your credit card abroad, a good alternative is to take out a travel money card instead.

Prepaid travel cards allow the user to load their spending money onto the card at the exchange rate available when they do so.

The rate is fixed so the user does not get charged extra when it changes, nor is each transaction charged a fee when used to make purchases.

It prevents the need to carry cash around for the whole holiday, and it saves the hassle of getting travellers’ cheques changed too.

Tags: bad credit credit cards, bank account, BANK ACCOUNTS, bank cards, Card One Banking, charity credit cards, compare credit cards, compare prepaid cards, compare prepaid credit cards, credit card companies, credit card comparison, natwest, PREPAID CARDS, prepaid maestro card, prepaid mastercard, tesco credit cards, tesco prepaid money cards, travel credit cards, travel money, TRAVEL MONEY CARDS, travel money cards offer alternative to using debit cards abroad, travel prepaid cards, Travellers cheques, virgin money prepaid card, virgin pay as you go card, white eagle prepaid card