Travelex Cash Passport – Safe Travel Money
Recently I was heading over to Malaysia to visit some family and do some shopping, when I read an article saying that Malaysia has the worlds highest risk for credit card fraud. OH-O!
It made me ponder about the best ways to travel with money in a safe, secure and easy to access way. I started to do my research and came across a number of different options, most of which were either restrictive to access my money or would charge a premium to let me take it overseas in multiple currencies.
Not only did I need a way to take my money overseas, I needed an option that would let me dispose of the card once I came back. Credit card fraud tends to happen months after the initial place of transaction, so I wanted to ensure that the card was no longer active or holding any of my money when I came back to Australia. Take that fraudsters!
Safe Travel Money
As the title of the post suggests, the best way for me to take money overseas was via the Travelex Cash Passport – and trust me, I looked around for a long time. Travelex offers a plastic card called the ‘Cass Passport’, it offers the convenience of a credit card with the security of how travellers cheques used to be – quite a good mix really.
It lets you load your money onto the card before travelling to ensure that you can access it when you get to your destination and offers you a pin and signature depending on which card you get.
The debit card allows you to have the following currencies on the card;
- EU€ – The Euro
- GB£ – Great Britain Pounds
- US$ – US Dollars
- NZ$ – New Zealand Dollars
- AU$ – Australian Dollars
Key benefits of a Travelex Cash Passport
Security
The Cash Passport is not connected to your primary bank accounts & allows you to assign a PIN for ATM use or PIN and Signature for Debit Card use.
Prepaid Convenience
You can withdraw local currency at multiple places around the world via Visa ATMs. You can also use it as a credit card anywhere that Visa is accepted.
Reloadable
You can top the funds up on your Cash Passport mid trip. Eg; Over the internet at an internet Cafe in Malaysia.
Flexibility
The Cash Passport is available at over 7,500 outlets across Australia, from travel agents to credit unions or Australia Post Shops.
Worldwide emergency help.
Your Cash Passport comes with 24/7 Global Emergency Assistance which provides a range of FREE services including replacement cards and access to emergency cash if your cards are lost or stolen, interpreter services, send a message home and help finding legal or medical support.
Further information on the Travelex Cash Passport
Visit the main Travelex Cash Passport website for more information. I believe it is quite a good option for people wanting to travel and protect their money, especially in high risk countries.
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3 Responses for Travelex Cash Passport – Safe Travel Money
This card sounds good at first, but you need to read the fine print. It is only good if you are using the same currency as which you have loaded e.g. you load $US and you use the card in America and take out $US.
However, it is not really a better option if you are going to end up using a different currency to the one you have loaded on the card e.g. you load $AU and you go to Vietnam and take out Viet Dong. When you do this, you will be charged a foreign currency margin of 5.75% of your transaction, on top of the $3.75 fee for withdrawal. I was going to get this card for my trip to SEA, but did some calculations and figured out that my regular debit and visa debit cards from ANZ will work out cheaper!!
I found using Travelex Cash Passport very handy. It is easy to sign up, load the card with your chosen currency and start using.
I used a Cash Passport in 2007 in a trip to Thailand and it was fantastic. I used it again in Bali in 2009 and had a wretched time with the card. Starting from the airport, where the ATM told me I had 0.00 in my account (I had transferred AUS2000.00 7 days beforehand) which gave me a near heart attack as I was about to catch my flight. I rang Travellex who said that I couldn’t use it in Australia (?!?) but it would work in Bali. So i got onthe plane, with crossed fingers, sweating that I would not have any money when I got to Bali. The ATMs in Bali said I had the appropriate balance, but everytime I pulled cash out at an ATM, it would take a couple of days to register the new balance and I wound up overspending and having to whip out my credit card (something I really didn’t want to do) while still in Bali. I’m about to head back to Thailand in Feb 2011 and I think I’ll stick with safe old travellers checks this time.
