Using a Mastercard Prepaid Currency Card

For onboard spend, both Cunard and Celebrity point blank refused to accept Mastercard USD prepaid currency cards, this despite providing my MasterCard Credit card as guarantee of payment ! I requested to pay in USD on the last evening using the cashcard to avoid the 3% credit card charge. Has anyone out there experienced this same problem ? Incidentally, I used my MasterCard EURO prepaid currency card on a Costa cruise with no problem.

If you are considering using prepaid currency cards for onboard spend...BEWARE !!

If you have a prepaid MC or Visa card, cash it out at your bank and bring cash. They are the same as cash, but MUCH harder to use outside of the US. Not worth the hassle....bring cash.

I didn't think any cruise lines accept the prepaid credit cards. Evidently Costa is an exception.

The Prepaid Cards are overrated and not widely accepted once you leave North America. I assume the cruise ships just do not want to get themselves into the accounting hassle of handling the things. But I wonder if the ship Casino's would accept them and if so, what kind of fee they would charge.

Hank

Cash them in at your bank.

Use a regular credit card or cash.

I don't think any do ..

The only cards any cruise line will accept are those with your name embossed on it, so any pre-paid card, regardless of the vendor of the card, can't be used. If the OP had read the cruise line's website, he/she would have known that cruise lines do not ever accept pre-paid cards for on board payment.

A problem with a number if the cards is they can lick up when they put daily bills through and final payment at end of cruise

That's why they refuse as it may get locked

I've had it happen a couple of times

Best normal card or take cash

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Chase Liquid is a Prepaid from Chase Bank with your name Embossed and it is even able to be maintained on Mobile devices and transfers easily money from your normal Chase acct. if you have one. Remember some of us really hate the american dream of credit cards and prefer to live without as much as possible.

With the liquid it saves from the horror stories you see on here about how the persons money was gone after they had gotten back from the cruise. I prefer not to carry that much cash and definitely don't want to use my Debit card.

Why do people even want to use prepaid cards?

Because we don't want to use credit cards or debit cards.

Someone posted what I thought was an excellent idea. Open a "travel account" have the money you think you will need for your trip deposited into that account. Use that card and your main bank account won't be at risk. It will still be a debit card, but a lot more controllable.

I've never taken my debit card tied to my bank account when traveling. I've had it stuck in the ATM here at my local branch and had to wait for the weekend to pass to retrieve it. Can't imagine how you would resolve that issue if you were in a port for only 1 day.

I personally usually take the cash I feel I will need. Then have a credit card as back up. I haven't tried the "travel account" idea myself, so no idea if it works well.