Teenage holiday money

[Carpedimum]

My teenage son is off to Greece with his mates post A levels. They’ll be in an AI hotel, but will no doubt need money for a daily newspaper, historical site visits and ice cream. Heavy sarcasm, obviously it will be booze out of the hotel, boozy boat trips, banana boat fun, hangover & sunburn meds. Can anyone advise what’s the best/safest/cheapest method of cash/money - all cash? Card / prepaid card etc.

I was actually mentally composing a “what planet are you on?” over the daily newspaper 🤣

Definitely not cash! I’d go for a prepaid credit card despite extra cost if he’s likely to lose it. Otherwise, I just travel with my usual bank card.

Personally I'd do a mix of prepaid and cash. It's always good to have some cash for cabs or the morning after bottles of water out of the resort etc.

Ha, yes @Cocomarine I have no doubt there will be little expenditure that doesn’t involve alcohol or brazen fun - they’re all relatively sensible lads & who can blame them for letting loose after the last couple of years.
I travel with my bank card, but whilst he’s already got one, I think a limited amount card would be sensible if there’s ATMs for when cash is expected (bars & clubs?)

He could use Revolut?

Thanks @FlorhamPark I’d not heard of Revolution, just looked it up & that’s exactly the tip I was looking for. 👍🏻

No problem- we've used it quite a bit, useful to know you could transfer in an emergency too.

My children (adults!) use it to transfer money between themselves and friends too.

@FlorhamPark

He could use Revolut?

Second this. We use this on holidays and its great. Adult dc use it also.

I've heard a lot of people recommended Revolut - I've also looked into Starling which is a bank account which doesn't charge fees when used abroad.

Monzo is another bank account which doesn't charge when withdrawing abroad. I used a mixture of this and cash on my recent holiday

I'd go for Starling over the other two as it's the only one that's completely fee free.

He needs to think about what he'd do if he lost his card on day 2 though. Perhaps also take his normal bank card but leave it locked in his hotel room and only use it if he loses his main spending card as many normal debit cards have a fee per use overseas, which is obviously very expensive if he uses it for multiple small transactions.

I've been using Revolut on holidays for years also, so handy.

A prepaid card you can load is perfect, preload with a set amount but hold back a bit that you can add in emergency. I have fx

I have been using a Caxton card in Spain. It gave me £10 free credit when I got airport parking so has been better than free. I was going to get Euros too, but this exchange rate was better than Sainsburys. It is so easy to use, has been accepted everywhere, no fees. I am topping up a bit each day via the app so it feels really safe. Definitely recommend.