Travelex Money Card review

Conversion costs 0%, so the local currency of the country you are in is what you pay, without a conversion charge added on top. That figure places it at 1 of 237 brands on this measure, where Wise charges 0.1%. Holding the currency before you travel keeps the rate you were given.

Top-ups are free on the foreign currency wallets, so funding a trip in the currencies you will actually spend costs nothing to load. The Pound Sterling wallet carries a top-up fee instead, which makes loading pounds and converting later the more expensive route. Conversion at the point of sale stays at 0% either way.

It is a prepaid card on the mastercard network, so you load it before you spend rather than drawing on a bank balance, and it is accepted wherever that network is accepted abroad. Multi-currency and travel are the features it is built around, with 22 currencies held on the same card.

The card holds 22 currencies at once, so you can load the local money for each stop before departure and spend from the relevant balance. Because the card is prepaid, the loaded balance is what you have to spend, and each currency stays in its own wallet.

Free ATM withdrawals are £0, so there is no included allowance on this card and cash machine use is charged. Paying in a shop or restaurant keeps spending at 0%. Monzo Flex includes £200 of free ATM withdrawals, which is worth weighing if you expect to take out cash.

The card is issued by Travelex Foreign Coin Services Ltd, which is regulated in the United Kingdom by the Financial Conduct Authority under licence 900010. Travelex itself was founded in 1976 and is headquartered in the GB, so the operator and the named legal entity sit in the same market.

Support runs on email, phone and help centre only, so you can email, call or use the help centre, with the service remote rather than branch based. For questions about loading or locking a currency before departure, the help centre is the place to start, and a phone call is there when you are abroad and cannot check email.