Using a Travelex Cash Passport

You'll find plenty of other posts about this topic if you scroll down through the topics in the General Europe section. In short, though, they are a bad idea. The setup fees, load fees, and bad exchange rate make them much less favorable than just using your regular ATM card to get cash. You can set up a regular checking account with your travel funds (so it's not tied to your regular account).

Once you read the fine print on the card, you should have your answer. There is no advantage over a debit card and some disadvantages.

I normally use my ATM card to get paper money. But I bought a Cash Passport specifically to make transactions at unattended train stations and the like, that only accept chip-and-pin cards. I didn't want to depend on the machines taking paper money or having the right change. This can also save 30 minutes of waiting in line for a human to buy a train ticket! One machine refused my Travelex card in Germany, but others worked fine. On the minus side, a human-attended cashier's machine in Koblenz also couldn't process my Travelex. And it's true that the exchange-rate-hidden cost of the card is beyond the level of "outrageous"! In Belgium, many vendors, like public transit and the national rail company only accept a similar, almost obsolete product called Bancontact/Mister Cash. Even if you have a chip and pin card from the two US credit unions in the US that offer them, it won't work at these vendors. One problem you'll encounter is unattended gas stations-even at places like the Brussels airport. Although I hate to pay exchange-rate fees, my conventional Bank of America debit card (with 4 digit pin) did work there.

I've made three trips (42 days) to Germany/Austria since 2007. In that time I only used my credit card three times, all in Bahn ticket automats (Since I don't use a car, I am not dependent on gas stations, toll boths, or parking lots). I never had any problems using a magnetic strip card in Bahn automats. My last card transaction was €2,10 when the counter hadn't opened yet and the only automat didn't take cash. On my next trip, I plan to check out the Geldkarte, a prepaid card that you load up to €200 at banks and in special machines. There is no fee for using the card other than your bank's exch. fee to get cash to load it (the merchants do pay 0.3%). Some transit districts take the Geldkarte for payment; MVV (Munich) gives a small discount (~4%) when you use it for some tickets.

Posted after return from Germany and Belgium, 2011: Well, the Travelex Cash Passport was only partly successful. It worked in some DB train station machines, and not in others. (Andernach, Bingen, Boppard) To my astonishment, it was rejected at the live-human counter for the huge BUGA Bundesgarten show in Koblenz. That was a surprise because every machine in the temporary ticket booths was brand new, and the young, fluent English speaking staff were quite young. He tried it more than once. And he refused VISA and Mastercard credit cards. The disappointment in Belgium was that both the national railroad (NMBS) and the bus/tram agency (de Lijn) machines exclusively use a proprietary card product called Bancontact/Mister Cash. de Lijn even accepts only that at staffed ticket counters. A nice lady in Antwerp acknowledged "it's kind of old-fashioned". I was astonished to find many completely unstaffed gasoline stations in Belgium, even at the BRU airport on weekend mornings. Signs threatened to take only Bancontact also, but when I saw the list of "networks", I tried and found that my Bank Of America ATM card and 4-digit PIN worked. Since I had to return the car "full", I didn't mind the surprisingly small fee.

What happens with your unused funds? Is there a fee to take the money off if you are unable to spend it because machines refuse to take the card?

Is there a fee to take the money off if you are unable to spend it because machines refuse to take the card? There sure is....

Well, I go to Europe often enough that I don't plan to cash-out the Travelex card before it expires in 2016. They suggest that there might even be a fee to transfer the remaining balance to a fresh card at that time. But the brochure is vague on that. One reason it may be vague is that I think the Garden State Plaza Travelex guy (largest mall in Bergen County, NJ) told me that I could cash it out there for no fee. But that means ... Euros into Dollars, so .... they would get their slice, again, anyway! I'm disappointed, but I'm not furious. I was furious when I had American Express Deutsche Mark Traveler's Checks refused 15 years ago in Munich. I've never bought traveler's checks of any kind again.

I just returned from Belgium and had no problem buying trian tickets with cash I got from the ATM.

I echo what Lee said. I've made 3 trips to Europe the last 3 years and have used a credit card exactly twice. Granted I've never rented a car so I've not had to deal with gas stations and the like. That aside I've taken advice from these boards, planned ahead, taken cash with me, used atm's etc. My fees have been very minimal to say the least.

We used our Travelex Cash Passport for a month in London and Paris last year. We will buy cards for Turkey, Greece, Copenhagen and Rome and London in a few weeks. It was very convenient. Travelex gives you the refund at the same rate you bought the card for, just like their cash. We totally recommend their service. If you loose the card, it is totally refundable. We didn't have any trouble using the card at various ATM's.

We used a Travelex passport when we were in France in April. Slightly less favorable exchange rate to preload with euros, but that in place of any fees. We used it for purchases, meals, in ATM machines and also in ticket kiosks without any trouble. No problems when we traveled to Loire Valley or Normandy either. Our credit card would have charged us a fee everytime we used it. Travelex was very convenient. We returned it when we got home to cash out the unused portion (returned at the current exchange rate, but it hadn't changed so was no issue). We would use again.