Pre-paid money cards

[The Londoners]

We always travel with high limit credit cards and a debit card linked to an account where we ensure there is an 'emergency' supply of money, however we don't like to carry too much cash so were looking at whether the pre-paid card was a viable alternative to travellers cheques but it appears not! Credit cards have their uses but extortionate charges for cash withdrawals and we always like to have cash for the ports. Would only use credit cards for big purchases, which we don׳t intend to make this year.

We already save our loose change in a jar and manage to add to pur holiday funds, but that doesn't avert the problem of not wanting to carry too much cash, the OBC idea does help though! BTW we aren't even thinking abbot next year's cruise yet, we are decision making for our Septwmber 2011 cruise!

[Thornbird]

Noone has mentioned this as a possibility - use your credit card like a debit card. If you usually avoid using your CC then you should have a $0 balance on it. Before you leave for your cruise, load up your holiday savings onto the CC so it is in credit by that amount. Then you can take out cash without the "cash advance" fees, and pay the final bill without a concern about paying it off (because it should just have come back down to zero). You shuld still get the normal protections you would with a regualr redit card use - though this may vary between banks. If you tell the cruise line to bill you in $US then you should get your banks rate of conversion (which will be far far better than Celebrity's) although it is true you will get the rate at that time, not the best rate from the past 6 months. (My feeling is generally that as a layperson I'm not likely to gain much from guessing which way the rate is going to go, so I tend to just go with the rate at the time).

[Project_gal]

Noone has mentioned this as a possibility - use your credit card like a debit card. If you usually avoid using your CC then you should have a $0 balance on it. Before you leave for your cruise, load up your holiday savings onto the CC so it is in credit by that amount. Then you can take out cash without the "cash advance" fees, and pay the final bill without a concern about paying it off (because it should just have come back down to zero). You shuld still get the normal protections you would with a regualr redit card use - though this may vary between banks. If you tell the cruise line to bill you in $US then you should get your banks rate of conversion (which will be far far better than Celebrity's) although it is true you will get the rate at that time, not the best rate from the past 6 months. (My feeling is generally that as a layperson I'm not likely to gain much from guessing which way the rate is going to go, so I tend to just go with the rate at the time).

 

Interesting that you can do that in Australia. You certainly cannot do that on our credit card in the UK. It is one of the major ones here [and, perhaps, other are different]. I tried to do this when we did a long cruise and the payment period fell at the wrong time.

 

Sue

[Thornbird]

Really? You can't have a positive balance on the credit card? Wow, we get a better deal than I realised. Between that and the US system still using signatures rather than chips, maybe I'll lay off the bank bashing for a while then!

 

BTW sorry for the appalling typing in previous post - must have still been half asleep.

[Project_gal]

Really? You can't have a positive balance on the credit card? Wow, we get a better deal than I realised. Between that and the US system still using signatures rather than chips, maybe I'll lay off the bank bashing for a while then!

 

I have to admit that it surprised me. They could have had my money for longer but I would have preferred to have done that to having to pay the bill via the Internet whilst away from home.

 

Sue