There could be quite a few different prices available for travel. Where can you find the most reasonable price? What undisclosed fees might be lurking in the bill? Will this review for the South Africa Rand Travelex Cash Passport determine if or not the Travelex card presents a reasonable rate?
You should not buy into myths about commission-free travel money.
To begin with, you don’t want to place your confidence in the commission-free travel money myth. Too many people believe that a zero commission rate translates into a zero exchange rate margin – and that there won’t be any additional charges. But this is definitely not the case! 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 price, and why is it important?
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. If this is what happens for you, you will need to pay foreign exchange fees on your Travelex Cash Passport. 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.
The first thing you will notice about Travelex’s rand currency exchange prices largely vary as contingent upon the location in which you top-up your Cash Passport card. 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. Just how good are the better prices, and how poor are the airport rates from Travelex?
We made a choice to study Travelex’s Cash Passport prices at 11:30 a.m. on May 12th, 2010. What we found is as follows.
If your Travelex Cash Passport Rand card was topped up through an online site, you will get 10.752 rand to the pound (sterling) when the interbank exchange price was 11.2087, as stated on www.xe.com. In other words, Travelex was enforcing a 4.07% margin charge. Not exactly commission free, is it?
If you look at the rate for Heathrow airport at that time, you’ll find that you would have received only 10.1527 rand for your one pound sterling, a whopping 9.42% difference from the interbank exchange rate. If you had exchanged 2000 of sterling to rands at that rate, Travelex would have made a profit of 188.40. 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.
So the Travelex card is not a good idea but is there anything else out there?
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’ve looked into all the available currency cards, evaluating both their good and bad qualities, and have found the one card that really stands out – the FairFX Anywhere Card.
What makes the FairFX Anywhere Card better?
The travel money value of the FairFX Anywhere Card is unmatched by any of the others. Their exchange rates run at roughly .25% away from the interbank exchange rates and they do not slap you with any foreign 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.
Can you really save a lot of money by using the FairFX Anywhere Card?
If you charged the FairFX card up with 2000 pnds you would get a savings of 46.40 pnds over the Rand Travelex Cash Passport online or the huge savings of 153.40 pnds over what it would cost you to charge the card up at Heathrow, these rates are based on our previous example. (The precise amount of money you end up saving will be entirely contingent upon exchange fees, but this article offers a pretty accurate picture of what you could save.)
Make sure you get a better deal on south africa travel money, and have a look at our table, which clearly shows all the charges with different card suppliers.