A Quick Review Of The Rand Travelex Cash Passport
There could be quite a few different prices available for travel. How can you ensure you will get the very best rates? Where can you find hidden fees? Will the South Africa Rand Travelex Cash Passport provide you with the value you want to see when you’re traveling?
Don’t place your trust in the myth about commission-free travel
Don’t fall for the hype of commission-free travel money. There are a lot of people who truly believe the zero commission won’t denote an additional fee or exchange rate allowance. This is absolutely false! Be sure that you always remember to contrast different foreign exchange prices and currency exchange prices before you make your order.
What is a foreign exchange fee and why do you need to be aware of them?
Let’s say you’re heading to South Africa and make a quick stop on the way or you have some money left on your travelex card when you make it home - in either case, you’ll probably use your card beyond South Africa’s borders. Using the card outside of South Africa means you’ll have to pay the Travelex Cash Passport foreign exchange fees. for instance, if you have 500 surplus cash on your Rand card, you will be charged with a sizable 28.75 fee after returning home so you can take money out.
Information on Travelex Rand Exchange Rates.
One of the main things to remember about rand currency exchange rates which are offered through Travelex is that the rates will be different depending on where you charge your Cash Passport. If you purchase your money via an online vendor, it’s likely that you’ll be getting a better deal and definitely a better one that you would have gotten from any airport. But what is the difference between rates online and rates at the airport?
We did a little investigating and discovered that as 11:30 AM on May 12, 2010, the Travelex Cash Passport rates were as follows…
The online selection allowed you to add to your Travelex Cash Passport Rand card at 10.752 rand to one pound sterling, near but not equal to the interbank exchange rate of 11.2087 being offered at that same time as listed on XE.com. So Travelex’s margin for this transaction was 4.07%. So much for the commission-free travel cash, huh?
But if you instead chose to charge your card at Heathrow airport on that same date, you would have received 10.1527 rand per pound sterling which is 9.42% less than the interbank exchange rates that were being reported by XE.com. This is equal to Travelex generating a profit of 188.40 when you convert an amount of 2000 sterling into South African rand. This also does not account for the 5.75% fee they will tack on when you attempt to withdraw any leftover monies upon your return home.
Based on this information, the Travelex card does not seem like the best option.
Even though this particular card, the Rand Travelex Cash Passport, isn’t a great value, is not to say that a travel money card isn’t a good idea in general. We have conducted comprehensive research on the benefits and disadvantages of various currency cards, and the FairFX Anywhere Card really does stand out.
Why would you want to pick the FairFX Anywhere Card over any others?
The FairFX Anywhere Card provides incredible value for your travel money. There aren’t any foreign exchange costs, and the exchange prices roughly fall at 0.25% lower than interbank exchange fees. You will pay a 1.% transaction fee each time you use the card for withdraws or purchases. They do not charge any additional fees for withdrawing money through an ATM.
How much money can a person save when they use the FairFX Anywhere Card?
Let’s take another look at that 2000, but this time with the FaixFX Anywhere Card: you’d keep an additional 46.40 over the Rand Travelex online exchange and an unbelievable 153.40 more than the Rand Travelex exchange at Heathrow airport. (This is just an example of how much you may save and is only intended as a demonstration - the true amount saved will depend on current exchange rates at the time of the transaction.)