Debit, credit or prepaid card in third world countries?
 

What card do you use on your travels in third world countries?

I'm liking the idea of a prepaid card as it's not directly linked to my bank account, no ATM charges, low foreign exchange charges.

I use a pre-paid card which works well, they all seem to be Mastercard which means that I sometimes have to use my Visa bank card but not very often.

Not on a bike travel (yet) but I've tried Revolut in many third world countries and it works just fine. Easy to monitor and block from the phone app, you can order several cards and manage them all through the app, like hiding a spare card somewhere while freezing it in the app (so its useless if stolen).
TransferWise is similar I think. Revolut does Visa, TW is Mastercard, both debit cards.

My wife has Revolut card but it is not Visa but Mastercard. Other than that it works 99%. There were couple problems when she wanted to pay contactless for the city bus ticket here in the UK. But we are not third world country (well at least not until end of March) so this does not count :rolleyes3:

In my experience they all work well - until they don't work in a particular fuel pump, store, entire town or even an entire country .
AND first world countries can be more problematic than third world.
Which is why you really need to have 4 ways of paying for stuff - with cash in small bill US dollars being the 4th method.

Hi

There is a couple travelling in Southern Africa that give Starling Bank a good report. It uses a phone app that automatically messages you the amount withdrawn in local currency and Uk amounts. I'm told that it is free to withdraw anywhere in the world as well.

Our normal bank cards are already Maestro type (which usually works when Mastercard works). So it is important to get variation, that is why we have a Visa credit card. So usually both are accept, but yeah we always carry cash in local currency as well as US dollars as well. Euro is an alternative, not sure how well it would work in Africa.

But I loved the visa credit card for the two times I had to pay a huge amount in cash for shipping. Our normal bank cards were acting up, as in they hit the limit early.
With the visa cards I was able to withdraw a large amount. So yeah, you lose a couple of percent but if it allows me to arrange a large sum of cash quickly, then I'm okay with that.

What, more specifically is a large sum? Even my UBS card won’t let me do over 800€ a day in Europe at ATMs.

That is why you have several cards so you can get the daily limit out of each of them, and then do it again 24 hours later.
Typical shipping costs might be from $500 to $3000 depending on how big the vehicle is. Or you might have a major repair or new tyres to pay for and as happens in Bolivia, many businesses just won't take credit cards

And also the daily limit in many countries including some European countries let alone many in S America is VERY low eg $200 so it can take visiting several ATM's just to hit your banks daily limit. Then it is nice to have a wad of US paper money tucked away somewhere

Once it was something like 1400 euro and second time around 1800 euro. Wouldve never worked with the normal bank cards. With the Visa card no problem. Altough the ATMs may want you to withdraw it in two takes.

Charles Schwab Card
 

We use the Charles Schwab debit card when traveling from here in the US to Europe. We had no issues while in Austria, Czech Republic, and Germany. There are no international transaction fees, and no atm fees. Just wanted to throw that out there.

I carry three. One travel spending card that offers no transaction fee and good conversion rates.

Secondly a standard debit card from my main bank,

Thirdly a credit card for back up.

I keep them in different places in case I loose one or get mugged.

And I carry four cards, minimum: two debit cards and two credit cards. When I anticipate complexity (or on a long trip), three of each. There is nothing like having a debit card get eaten by an ATM at the beginning of a long holiday weekend to put the fear of god into you....unless it's having a credit card cancelled by a distant corporate office due to activity they view as suspicious.

Most of my cards have favorable terms for world travel. Some are better than others, so always read the fine print. One of each kind of card is always a MasterCard, since every so often Visa cards are not accepted, even in Africa.

I've never messed with pre-paid cards. Maybe I'm old and inflexible, but the advantages never seemed worth juggling and tracking another account. I do take steps to limit my exposure to theft or fraud while traveling, and I never, ever log into an account while on a trip--I once had the experience of logging in, then receiving a suspicious activity notification from my bank which resulted in the card being shut down. I view any text, phone, or internet activity as subject to security breaches--and yes, there are obvious steps I might take to render this less likely, but see the above re "old and inflexible."

I do always carry some cash in US dollars, for all the obvious reasons.

Hope that's helpful.

Mark

I also carry four cards. Two visa and two Mastercard. I'm currently travelling through West Africa and I have always been able to get cash from ATMs when one doesn't work for whatever reason.

My prepaid Mastercard gets most use and has worked in a lot of West African ATMs. I'm with Caxton. A nice feature is the option of a secondary card. I have this stashed on motorcycle for emergency use. Similar to Revolut, it has an app for loading cash etc.

i usually use a selection debit/credit cards but is there a new way on the horizon ? It is very early days but after a breakdown /repair at honda in Lisbon last year I enquired if they accepted Btc ,no (in portugese) but who knows in a couple of years ?

podcast if anyone interested
https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podca...k-with-bitcoin

Some of our clients are using them, and for now only have positive reviews.

Thanks for your comment, these are useful for the community.

cheers
dooby

I sue a Santander mastercard for just about everything. It even works at fuel pumps in Malaysia. It has an app on my phone that tells me the cost in sterling so I can see what I am really paying in real time. The exchange rate is good too.

Before I retired, one of my job responsibilities was delivering new aircraft to lesser developed countries. In my last year of work, I visited 60 countries (some only for a quick fuel stop, but even then, that involved buying several thousand dollars of jet fuel & food, landing fees, etc.)

Now that I am retired, I ride my two motorcycles (one in Europe, one in North America) in many different countries.

I carry a MasterCard (Maestro), an American Express card (plain green one, as simple as you can get), and a bank debit card. I've never, ever been stuck with that combination.

I use the MasterCard as my primary payment method and have found that it works at 99.9% of the places that accept credit cards of any form.

I use the bank debit card to withdraw money from ATMs, and have never ever had it rejected. The only exception has been in countries where there are sanctions applied that affect international banking transactions, such as North Korea, South Sudan, and Iran. It is essential that the debit card have an Interac or Maestro logo (or Visa equivilent) on it. I don't use the debit card to pay for transactions - I use the credit card for that.

I usually withdraw cash in increments equal to about $200 US, this to keep the fees reasonable (ATM fees are typically 'per transaction', not a percent, although I have noticed a growing switch to percentage fees, such as 2%, in the past couple of years).

The American Express card is a "emergency backup", not so much for credit card use but because if I really get stuck, I can find an American Express office or corresponding bank and get cash from them. Troublesome, I suppose, but that's a level of service that the regular credit cards don't offer. I've never had to do that.

So, for me, it's basically one primary credit card (MasterCard), one primary debit card, and one 'emergency' credit card. I've never had any problems and never been stuck getting cash or making a payment - and I have been to a lot of REALLY out of the way third world countries.

Michael

Revolut are the one everyone is using at the moment.

I used it in South America just last winter. And it was great.

Although I do not dispute that ATMs in lesser developed countries may have security problems such as malware in the ATM software, the primary responsibility for protecting bank card users from fraudulent use lies with the bank that has issued the card.

The banks do this using various strategies, such as:

1) Monitoring the customers' travel history and card use history. For example, is the location and amount of the withdrawal consistent with the past behaviour of the customer? If they made a withdrawal in Paris yesterday, and bought gasoline south of Paris today, does it make sense that they are making a withdrawal in Las Vegas 2 hours later?

2) Exchanging information between banks about ATMs at banks in member (e.g. Maestro) networks that are showing anomalous customer use patterns.

Like I said in my post above, I spent years travelling far more intensively than any overlander could - Canada one day, Alaska the next, Siberia the next day, Korea two days later, then through a whole bunch of Polynesian and Melanesian islands over the next 5 days - and I have never had a problem with unauthorized ATM withdrawals.

I have had problems with unauthorized (fraudulent) purchase transactions, but in every case, my issuing bank caught the fraudulent purchase and notified me immediately.

The principal risk to overlanders associated with fraudulent purchases is that when the issuing bank catches one, they will cancel the card immediately to stop further abuse. Getting a replacement card can be a headache if you are away from home and travelling every day. That's why I recommend carrying 3 cards - a debit card (for ATMs), a primary credit card (e.g. MasterCard), and a backup credit card (e.g. American Express).

Michael

I never travel--even in my own country--with less than two ATM cards. I've had the disheartening experience of having one swallowed by a machine in a closed bank. I've gotten the card back when the bank opened, but that might be the next day...or following a long holiday weekend. On a longer trip in faraway places I often bring three.

Same with credit cards--two or three, covering at least both Mastercard and Visa. I hedge in favor of more ATM or more credit cards based on whether I'm headed for credit economies--the Developed World and many tourist-oriented places, where credit cards are accepted almost everywhere--or places where cash is the usual medium of exchange.

I also carry some hard currency in cash. All of this is seldom any real use, but when everything has fallen completely apart I've been really glad to have cash and a variety of cards to choose from. YMMV.

Mark

Makes complete sense to me. Carrying extra cards and cash is easy, lightweight and takes up little space. For the small hassle of figuring out where to hide/store all these various things you get a huge safety net in case of unforeseen problems.

Cards are difficult to replace when on the road. I lost my wallet in Turkey ....

https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu.../KarsTK009.jpg

(Dumb! I knew that pocket was shallow and I thought : 'not a good idea to put my wallet there' - but put it in there anyway! doh).

I was traveling with an extra card, so I was ok but I realized that now I had no backup and a long road ahead of me. I ordered a new card, but the bank refused to send it anywhere but the address on my account- Colorado. After a week my new card arrived home and my wife asked me where to send it.

We had a contact through my traveling partner's sister in Holland, whose husband had a cousin whose sibling lived in Trabzon (kind of tenuous, no?) and I directed my wife to send the card there.

We got to Trabzon, and hired a taxi to take us to the address and after a lot of stopping and asking along the way we finally found their place. I was getting nervous. Apparently there were no addresses, the buildings were known only by the name of the owners- family units usually, whose extended families lived in all the units.

We pulled up to the building to find a woman pushing her daughter up a ladder to the second story to 'break in' (forgot her keys, we later discovered.). After confirming this was the place, I asked- language barrier- the taxi driver did his best at interpreting for me...........


https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu.../KarsTK008.jpg


'Did you get a small package?'
'Oh, I'm not sure, maybe Uncle Joe on the 5th floor got it.'
' No. Well, let me ask Aunt Sara, then.'
'Sara says she thinks Grandpa signed for it but he's asleep right now. Maybe in a little while....?'

The relief I felt when I finally had the card in my hands: I was hugging everyone and dancing around grinning.

Great experience, but I carry extra cards now.

...................shu

Well now that you've mentioned it, has anyone else managed to do much with cryptocurrency on a trip (other than speculating on it to fund the trip in the first place)? I do keep a bit of an eye out for these things but I've yet to see anywhere advertising openly that they'll take payment in any form of 'bitcoin' (shorthand to cover all the various forms).

I'm sure there are places (not counting the darker side of life anyway) but compared to paying for goods / services in the usual way (cash, cards of all sorts, bank transfer, Paypal / Applepay etc, even some of the oddball local town currencies that had their few weeks in the sun a while back) crypto has not made much of an impact - that I've seen anyway. But maybe I lead too sheltered a life to recognise the future has arrived. Anyone using it?

I have a bitcoin wallet since some years which I used to receive overseas payments. I immediately would use crypto payments if there would be a bigger acceptance in Germany/Europe and a hazzle free payment application given. With crypto payments you will never run into known credit card fraud issues!

So far i use different types of credit cards, bank cards and paypal. Cards are linked to apple pay and I do mostly use apple watch for payments. Paypal works only with ios app.

BitPay is afaik the only Bitcoin and cryptocurrency payment service who offers a linking to apple pay. But it`s not pure crypto payment, it`s more combing a crypto currency account with a credit card and an app.

Cash is still a necessary to carry backup

Debit card + cash
 

For security reasons, my set up is like this.

I have a MC debit card (No Credit !!). Could as well be Visa or ....
The card is connected to a separate bank account. "Transfer account". Where I keep a very low balance.
In normal cases, that is the only card I use to pay with, (including over internet).

=> If I need to do a larger payment. I need to transfer money from another account to the transfer account. That is done via internet bank with good security. (As long as you do not give your code to someone, they can't do anything) OK, Some hassle. But for security its is worth it.

=> If someone would get my card (number) with possibility to use it, they can use the money from the transfer account. That is it. No credit, no money on the account => no transaction allowed. That limits the possible damage.

I also like to have cash. And pay as much as possible in cash. If I get robbed. OK, The cash is gone. But it is much better than loosing card(s) that needs to be cancelled and replaced. ( I learned from the citizens in Ecuador: cash in the pocket. No wallet, with cards, driving licence, .....)

Then,of course. That card can not be the only solution. I need to have back up alternatives. If that card is stolen/eaten by an ATM or....

Shipping costs have gone up in the last year - as much as eight times higher!

Good point on repairs - we had to replace a radiator in Namibia and had to pay in cash.

Good summary - we too make sure we have multiple options: debit cards, credit cards, ATM cards (which we use in most places), some cash reserve, and application-based payment capability (e.g., MPESA in East Africa, Daviplata in Colombia).

I usually just use one card: DKB Visa (german) which allows "fee free" cash world wide from atm, and "fee free" payment in foreign currencys. Both can be up to 2.5% per transaction.

The account itself is free (too for foreigners), but you need a plus membership (at least 701 euro income per month) - what you can pay yourself too.

The rest is backup (1x mastercard, 1x debit card). Mastercard is stronger in africa but is usually geoblocked in countrys like nigeria (you had to call your bank).

Just go the DKB way if you have euro`s - otherwise you have the exchange risk.

Surfy

Shipping went up to 10 times the amount it was in 2019, crazy stuff all over the place.


BR
Dooby

I use DKB since years too but did you know that:

The "fee free" payment in foreign currencys won`t work if a dealer charges you with dues for a payment. This dues will be added to total amount and they are not refundable at DKB.

Some non EU providers of card terminals charge a transaction fee automatically - this amount isn`t shown on the payment receipt and it can inrease when they do the converting from local curreny first into US Dollar and then into Euro! Transaction fees aren`t refundable anymore by DKB.

But also EU Countries use this method e.g. still Poland. EU laws garantees you to pay a zloty invoice electronical in euro without paying fees. It`s still a common prodedure in business hotels like in warshaw. They do the convertion from sloty into us dollar and than into euro. You don`t pay fees but you loose money by doubled currency translation!

Sometimes the dealer has programmed the fee he has to pay to the terminal provider as fixed amount to every payment!
If you get offered to pay in "quotas"(common South America with special or price advantage offers) you will have to pay that kind of fees with every monthly payment!

ATMs in some countries are runned by seperated Service Companies who are only linked to banks. They charge you with a fee which costs DKB will not refund anymore. Normally the ATM will tell you in advance before getting chash but I have recognized sometimes that this info is suddenly shown only in local language instead of your prefered language. Often you don`t have to accept by pushing a button - you simply accept this fee with getting the cash and you cannot refund it at DKB.

These rules are hidden in a small footnote and valid since April 2020 when DKB set up the rule with the status "active customer" and his 700€ montly income.

I just signed up for a Revolut card but am a bit concerned about all the posts on reddit from people whose Revolut accounts have been locked while traveling. Anyone here have first-hand experience with using Revolut in places other than your home country?

I just got back to the US from Germany and my main bank card did not work at 90% of ATMs for some reason. Luckily I had another card which worked most places, but I want to use that one as little as possible, so am hoping that Revolut will work.

Revolut isn`t licensed as a bank in Germany. That`s why some ATMs of german banks do not work with Revolut.

They are registered in Lithuania since 2018 and have approx. 350.000 customers in DACH. By having a company haedquarter in an EU country a debit insurance is theoretical covering up to 100.000€. But why debit insurance in Lithuania is only secured nationalwise all banks based there are rated as unsafe in Germany.

I'm not going to have anything like 100k euro in my Revolut account, but it is important for me that it (1) works in most places; and (2) I don't get caught up in all kinds of "unverified activity" warnings, etc. while I'm traveling.

During my recent trip, my main bank ATM didn't work at all in most places, and I had to call my main credit card to verify a transaction even though I'd already told them I'd be traveling.

Yes, this can be a royal pain - I think you need to tell them EXACTLY (country) where you'll be travelling, and for how long, and I think a call while on the road would probably be worthwhile too. They also go on you history too - what's normal for YOU. I don't have issues any more as my travel is "random" and frequent - and therefore normal. (I DO tell them I'm going.)

The issue is that more and more credit card providers are ignoring any kind of informations you are giving about your travel plan and activities to them. The reason for this is growing fraud detection through realtime streaming by the help of AI and maschine learning.

Your behavior patterns, your product categories and the amounts you spent are analyzed by subtly model algorithms that finds patterns and rules so that it can classify whether a transaction is fraudulent or is legitimate.

It`s absolutely right and helpful like Grant says to build up a behavior pattern history for payments(when you start travelling!!) and to avoid any kind extraordinary payments with that card you "daily use" while traveling!

If I will travel again for a longer period, I prefer:

-> having a back up person with bank signatory in your home country who has a another card to order or pay things online.

-> trying to use one credit card provider for only a few product categories to set up a clear behavior pattern and rules for the credit card algorithm.

-> carrying more cash to reduce payments which are out of your normal behavior patterns.

Yes, I generally understand that, and the problem is that 99.9% of the time I'm sitting at home...haven't been doing much traveling in the last few years (moved, got a dog, etc. etc.).

I guess my plan will be to use the Revolut card as much as possible (fuel, meals, cash) and then use another card (which seems to work everywhere) as my main back up, and then another card as an ultimate back up (although it is the worst in terms of getting blocked/not working.

Anybody have any suggestions on how to "train" an algorithm when you land in a foreign country? I read somewhere that if you buy a ticket to a destination with a card, that card will "know" that you are there and so be less likely to block transactions? Or maybe start by getting a little cash out of an airport ATM? Just start with small purchases (fuel, meals)?

If it seems like I'm paranoid about this, its because just about the last thing I want to do while traveling to new places is spend 90 minutes on the phone with a #%&@! bank to get my card re-activated.

We live in France. In 2019 left France via Morocco, then Paris to Japan on our WRRs (F,D, A,PL,Li,Rus, Mon,Rus).

For cash we decided NOT to go with our bank cards but signed up for MAX (MasterCard) and Monabanq (visa).

We used the MAX almost universally -even though it is not visa- as it provides unlimited withdrawal and payments for no fees, is App managed (so anywhere I get internet), a quite favorable foreign exchange rate (much better than my EU bank card), and when necessary, a very responsive customer service.

Whereas Monabanq, also App managed, has an annual fee (although nicely offset by the 'signing bonus', has a limited number of transactions per month; and can get expensive if you exceed the limit. Monabanq gave us a second card for no cost.

Having the two systems let us have a backup if one didn't work. We could also in times of need could use our various EU bank cards and eat the fees, commission and exchange...

Works from Europe to Japan no problem. Better deal and advantages than N26 and Revolut (UK members seem to like Revolut).

During the voyage almost never used cash, card only. Bof Mongolia maybe cash in the small shops in the country off the pavement.

Not a single problem during the 8 month trip, or since as we continue to use our cards.

EDIT- more details

I just got back from a long US roadtrip (about 8k miles) during which I tried to use Revolut as my main payment option for gas. Didn't really work very well... The Revolut card didn't work at between 1/3 and 1/2 of gas pumps--either the pump's "security" features blocked the card or Revolut itself didn't allow the transaction. Plus every time I filled up, a deposit of $100 or $80 would be taken from my card, with whatever was not used for fuel refunded sooner or later (usually within an hour, but once it took five days and once it took two days).

By the end of the trip, I had a few hundred bucks on the card that I wanted to use for gas, so if the card didn't work at the pump I would go inside to use it...while the card was not rejected during the few times I went inside to pay, it is not very convenient.

Not sure if things will work like this overseas, but if so I'll be looking for a different solution.

When we traveled to Serbia this year we used Mastercard without any problems, but mostly we used cash anyway. I was surprised that even some big shops didn't allow paying by card, lol. And truly, there's a problem with Revolut card while traveling, so people from Reddit are right. Too good we usually have several cards with us.

Oh, one more thing...We had a surprise when we returned from traveling as our landlord was trying to deceive us. He asked us to pay some extra money for nothing, but we later contacted [removed] and he explained to us that landlord isn't right in this case. Lord, why do people always want to deceive one another?

I thought of this thread last week while taking a brief, un-adventurous little trip around the resource-extractive country to our north. I used my favorite credit card to pay for motel rooms, ski passes, fuel, and the occasional liquid sustenance. Halfway through the trip I got a text at 5:00am asking if I'd made a certain purchase; I texted back that I definitely had not, but declined to enter the requested account information because....you know.

Turned out it was a genuine breach and my card was abruptly cancelled. I switched to the spare I was carrying, and life went on. But it made me think about the frequency with which such stuff happens these days, and I think for my next brief little trip I'll take more than one spare card, and maybe an extra debit card as well. Even in the relative comfort of western Canada, no more than a day's drive from home, I don't want to be without functional credit if I can help it.

The issuing bank said they'll let me know what their investigation turns up, but it's obvious I'll never know which roadside motel, ski area, gas station, or wifi network (while using Booking.com) stole my card data.

Mark

Good advice - we carry a variety of cards and have on occasion had one suspended when a fraudulent purchase was made. Between the two of us we have at least 3 cards each. Sometimes a card doesn't work simply because the bank doesn't have an agreement with the business's bank.

I looked at Revolut but don't live in a country where you can take out an account : (

I carry as all some cards in my wallet but I always try to use electronic card payment by my iphone/watch or by my android phone for all payments. Both - Apple Pay and Google Pay are offering the advantage that your real credit card number gets encrypted during the payment process which prevents card fraud best in my opinion.

For online bookings or payments I use 2 debit cards which arent`t connected to my main bank account. Fraudster can try to use them but due to missing credit, it wont work. It is easy, fast and takes less effort today to transfer money from one bank account to another if you use your mobile internet connection.

I remember that I changed my payment options at amazon in 2019 to a new credt card. I only registrated this card at amazon and I never used it anywhere else. 3 months later I got informed by my credit card provider that this card was used in a fraud at amazon in buying some expensive. Everytime you register your card anywhere or you enter it online in a payment or reservation process it will be saved. When it is saved, it is stored under unknown conditions and a potenial risk that someone grabs is given.

If you want to avoid fraud and trouble through locked credit cards, using encrypted electronic payment offers a good protection. For work I have to travel a lot in west and eastern euope and since I use encrypted apple and google pay I never had any issue with credit card fraud.

Interesting. I guess I'll want to research the security aspects of different ways of accessing funds/paying for services. So many of the ways I do things are directly derived from the era of manual credit card imprinters and the very earliest days of ATMs.

I try to avoid doing any electronic banking related to my personal accounts (checking balances, transferring funds) while away from home because I don't trust ANY of the systems by which information is transmitted and possibly stored, and I don't want anyone to have access to my funds.

I use credit cards in preference to ATM cards because there is no direct electronic link--I pay my credit cards by personal check every month, not by auto-transfer, and have always assigned a friend to do that for me when I'm away. My liability for credit card fraud is limited to (IIRC) US $50.

On the other hand, I use debit cards in ATMs freely in places where credit cards aren't accepted, which isn't consistent with the above, especially since I don't limit available funds by transferring money into those accounts as needed. I ought to think carefully about that--more carefully than I've done so far. Why am I so willing to give credit card info in person, over the phone or via the internet, but only use debit cards in ATM machines? And why will I use a credit card to buy groceries, but not a debit card, "tap" or Apple Pay?

I've been subject to credit card fraud at least a couple of dozen times, ranging from someone in India who took two imprints of a card 30 years ago to whatever it is that happens to me now every 6 months or so (and additional times where people open new accounts in my name, a.k.a. identity theft). I've never had to pay for anything, but it does cost time and energy.

Missing from my understanding: why should I trust Apple Pay, which encrypts communication but still requires unencrypted information on both my end and the merchant's end of the process? How is that different from typing a Visa number into an https-protected website, or plugging it into a chip reader at the grocery store?

A lot of developing countries now accept credit cards and have high security measures.

1. I use credit cards for large purchases to be safeguarded from fraud and one with the lowest forex mark up fees

2. I use forex free debit cards at ATMs and I only keep a small amount in that account, i also land up using the atm fee saver mobile app, it gives me a list of fee free atms in developing countries

I use cash at a lot of places, it allows me to buy more local and also not have to expose my card at every place.

I was using my Revolut "card" quite happily in France in September. No issues whatsoever - I will get a physical card from them at some - I don't like being to reliant on my phone. I also used cash but the exchange rate was nowhere near as good as Revolut - I think there is a way to get cash at Revolut rates but off the top of my head I can't remember what it is.