Post Office Travel Money Card any good?

[jollymollie]

I have just loaded some hard earned cash onto the Euro one of these. I thought it would be a good idea as a way to save for my holiday. If I leave the spending money in the bank it will end up getting spent! Anyway after applying and loading some cash I have read reviews and they are awful. People have said that their card didn't work in the machines abroad and that they have been left without money. Now we don't have credit cards or a reserve of any kind so if that happened to us we would be in serious trouble! Has anyone used one of these of know if they are any good. Worried I'll lose money if I try and withdraw it now. Maybe should have read reviews before applying

I used a Thomas Cook one last year without problems and will use it again this year. I had to remember to carry a passport with me though as some shops wanted to see ID when I paid by card. I had to register mine on line before we left but it worked fine once we were away but I was worried too, I read lots of bad reviews on mine when we got home.

It worked for us though because we spent far less than we usually do when we carry cash.

Thanks, that's good to hear. I really don't want to take cash with us and want to keep the money separate from my bank account so this sounded ideal. I also thought I'd be safe with the Post Office. It's nice to hear a positive. I suppose people generally leave reviews on things if they have something bad to say.

I wonder if anyone else has used one of these? not sure whether to keep loading on it or look for an alternative?

I used one last year in Puerto Pollensa, Majorca. It was the Post Office Travel Money Card. When used I did not have any problems with it and I'm sure I used it in the supermarket too! I didn't load all my money on it last year as I was a bit concerned in case it did not work but once there I had no problems.

yes, that's what I was thinking of doing. Maybe just putting half my money on, taking some in cash and leave the rest in the bank to use debit card. I'm also scared it either won't work or get eaten by the cash machine over there. the problem is you can only have one card per account.

My friend took one of those when we went to the Netherlands together and it was useless. It only worked in cashpoints, not anywhere else. She wasn't stuck without money because after several 'computer says no' moments in shops she just ended up withdrawing the lot at a cashpoint, but that does rather defeat the point...

I realise this is an old thread but I wanted to resurrect as we've just had problems. Loaded our card with €800 euros. Paid for car hire €85 and they converted it back into £ then back into € and it cost us just over €105.

They were as helpful as a chocolate housebrick. Emailed me reams of information about dynamic currency conversion. Which, by the way, isn't mentioned when you buy the card. "it's a simple way to use it for transactions and cash abroad". Thats by the by though - we paid in € on the cash machine. No mention of currency conversion during the transaction.

So, as a warning, be careful with these cards.

We've taken cash since and that transaction gave an option conversion or without conversion (although quite why anyone would want conversion if you'd bought the local currency, I don't know) . However the PIN terminal for our car hire didn't. So.giving you the heads up.