03.Best travel money card
And the winner is... GE Money 28 Degrees MasterCard
No two prepaid travel money cards are quite alike, but one thing they all have in common is fees.
Fees are often the deal breaker when it comes to our assessment of financial service products – and that’s why our travel money award winner was chosen from the credit card rather than the prepaid card category.
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CHOICE investigative journalist, Andy Kollmorgen, explains why the GE Money 28 Degrees Mastercard has won the CHOICE Award for Best Travel Money Card.
CHOICE investigative journalist, Andy Kollmorgen, explains why the GE Money 28 Degrees Mastercard has won the CHOICE Award for Best Travel Money Card.
We haven’t overlooked the one undeniable advantage of prepaid over credit or debit cards – the ability to lock in exchange rates. But for this award, we concentrated strictly on which product will cost you the least if you use it correctly.
Locking in the best exchange rate can save you money, but only if you accurately predict the rate changes. Card fees, on the other hand, are a certainty, so the fee-free 28 Degrees MasterCard came out on top.
We also picked a runner-up from the prepaid products, since some consumers won’t want to apply for a credit card or open a new bank account just for one overseas trip. Commonwealth Bank’s prepaid Travel Money card was our runner-up because it meets our money-saving benchmarks: no initial loading, inactivity or closure fees, and the lowest fee for using currencies not loaded on your card of the cards we reviewed.
Andy Kollmorgen, CHOICE investigative journalist