In my local supermarket I noticed a gift card called VISA travel cash -- a pre-loaded, debit card which supposedly can be used internationally. I wonder if anyone has any experience with this? I'm thinking it might be a good gift from grandma to my kids this Christmas but only if it's easy and has no tacked on fees when using in Europe. Anyone know?

Dede

I don't know about fees but I do know that with the Visa Bucks card (similar pre-loaded item), you need to be aware of how much is left on he card when you use it. So for example, let's say you're going to purchase something for $75 and you only have $50 on the card. If you give the cashier the card, they can't just swipe it through and tell you that you still owe $25. When they put it through they have to tell it the amount, and if they tell it $75, it will be rejected b/c you only have $50. In this case, you would have to tell the cashier, ahead of time, put it through for $50 and I'll pay the rest, well, however you choose. If you don't keep track of how much is on the card, you can't use it. We found this to be way too cumbersome (basically, you have to track it like a checkbook).

Now with Visa gift cards (again a different thing), for every month of inactivity they charged $2.50 service fee - also not a good thing, so before you purchase one, I'd call and get all the terms.

Debit cards may be ok in the country of origin but can be very expensive overseas. Common charges for an overseas ATM transaction are about $4.00 for a foreign currency transaction plus about $4.00 overseas branch withdrawal fee plus overseas transaction fee of 3.00%. Crazy.

Much better is a "travel card" where you pay around $10.00 for the card plus the exchange rate charges for the currency purchased. There are no charges to use the card.

I have just researched this topic as we are going back to Vietnam in November and I need a back up card to my Visa credit card. I usually put my credit card into credit (which I know is not really acceptable in USA - but what can they do anyway) which minimises the bank charges but is a problem if you want to buy something on credit as it obvoiusly deducts the purchase from your existing credit.

There are other card options in USA but with the current financial fiasco who knows what might happen.