This is by far the worst currency option you will encounter. Their processes are ridiculous, from flexibility of loading the card to the trying to resolve any disputes. BEWARE - DO NOT USE FOR PRE-AUTHORISING HOTEL STAYS. Even when the hotel release the amount, Travelex will not apply it back to your balance. They want to see a formal letter from the hotel with a whole bunch of information on it. This company was clearly conceived by some idiot still stuck in the 70s. Use FairFX. Their online processes are so much simpler, and I have had no problems whatsoever with them in the 4 years I have used them for international currency. I thought I would try Travelex as an alternative and regret ever doing so. By the way, one month on from my initial stay, my pre-authorisation is still being held by this joke of a company, this despite sending them an email and scanned receipt from the hotel confirming they have released the funds.

Just been to France for 5 weeks with a Travelex Cashcard pre loaded. There is no chip on this card and that means you cannot use it in a lot of places. Toll road machines will not accept it therefore finished up using my HSBC debit card and was charged a transaction fee every time. Cash machine wont accept it. Petrol stations many are automatic and again you cannot use it and the worst one was in a supermarket where it did work on the check out but then they needed my passport to verify who I was. Will never ever use this again.

Cash Passport. Seems like a great idea and in lots of ways it is. But Beware When you come to reload some more money onto your card it is reloaded in your home currency and you then have to move it to the currency you desire. This is not difficult. BUT The exchange rate they give you is a COMPLETE RIPOFF My Credit card gives me .835cents Cashpassport only gives me .80 Goodbye Cashpassport I will use my credit card in future. Signed Rippedoffagain

Thought this was a sensible precaution. Settled 2 Canadian hotel bills and several meals using card with no problems. However, it was used to pay Hilton Group (3rd Hotel). On trying to draw money at Toronto Airport (in Travelex ATM) would not accept. On return to UK checked balance left on card and found $968 "pending" so shortfall on card. Many phone calls to Travelex who advised this is a Security amount and I will have to wait 30 days for amount to be re credited to card. As far as I am concerned this is a rip off (daylight robbery). A MasterCard Credit card was used to make booking but Cash passport used to pay bill. Never again! Cheaper to settle all with credit card.

A few years ago, I was coerced by my Travel Agent into taking some of my holiday "cash" on a Thomas Cook Euro Cash Passport administered by Travelex. In addition to the issues with exchange/withdrawal rates and acceptability mentioned in other reviews, BEWARE that, if you leave money on your card and don't use it for a period of time (12 or 15 months depending on card), Travelex will help themselves to a monthly "inactivity fee" - which drained 75 Euros from my account before I realised what was happening - and they would have kept going until they had helped themselves to the full balance (unlike Banks, they don't advise you when you are nearing the "inactivity" phase and they don't show full activity statements on your account, just the last 30 days - which makes it more difficult to spot the full extent of their actions). To add insult to injury, when cancelling the card, Thomas Cook (the issuer) wouldn't refund the remaining balance in Euros (a straight conversion), but insisted that it would need to be converted to Sterling and then back to Euros! As it was, the conversion to Sterling would have taken another £25 off of the balance - I converted it at my Bank's ATM instead and, even with fees, saved the further £25 extortion. Would I recommend these cards - ABSOLUTELY NO WAY - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Loaded this card with Australian dollars to take from New Zealand. Was very convenient and worked at all ATMs and any store/restaurant I tried it in with no problems. Good to be able to withdraw enough cash for a couple of days at a time rather than carry cash for 2 weeks around. Can only comment on my experience in Melbourne, but while Travelex don't charge any fees for ATM use overseas, the only ATMs I found that wouldn't charge their own fees were Westpac and Bank of Melbourne. Every other one warned me it would charge $3 before continuing, so I cancelled until finding a free one. Luckily I managed to find Westpac didn't charge on day 1 so continued using them for the rest of the time. Main thing to note is the poor exchanage rate offered when you reload money onto it. On setup there is a charge of the great of $10NZ or 1% of the initial load. After that there is only a $1 charge each time you reload via bill payment. So I thought I would be clever and load an amount that would only charge me the minimum $10 initially, then reload the rest to only pay $1. On setup the bank (my regular one) gave me a reasonable rate for the initial load (think it was $0.90 compared to the $0.91 advertised rate). However, when the money I reloaded came through and I logged into change it into AUD, I was only given $0.87 on the day that the news said the rate had reached a peak of $0.93. So instead of just the $1 bill payment fee I got about $80 less than if I had walked into a bank and exchanged cash. The bank didn't tell me the rate would be so terrible when reloading, although as it's administered by Travelex and not them they probably didn't know. So overall it was a useful and easy card to use and the exchange rate at setup is decent. But I would advise trying to load the total you want at setup. You'll may have to pay a bit more than the $10 minimum it's more than $1000 but it will be less than the amount you'll lose on the poor exchange rate offered to reloads.

Well decided to have long holiday in Thailand went to travelex asked about the Cash Passport card....Yes there are NO exchange fees at all just take your money out....Loaded the card with Thai Bhat abot 1 week later took out 15000 bhat at MASTERCARD machine the bank charhed me 180 bhat withdraw fee that's ok the normal rate....Later that night checked the account TRAVELEX charged me 900Bhat to take out 15000 that is nearly $ 30.00 in australian currency what a rip off......but what do you do they already have your money. KEEP AWAY FROM TRAVELEX DO USE THEM AT ALL THEY ARE RIP OFF MERCHANTS

We recently bought a Travelex card at Heathrow airport to travel with in Asia. We loaded spent £10 loading £500, a 2% fee. We were never told about the extortionate 'foreign exchange rate' fee of 5.75% and when we noticed what a terrible amount had been debited on our first withdrawal we found the 5.75% in the small print. Essentially Travelex are keeping 7.75% of our £500. I think this is the most terrible rip-off. It is much cheaper to withdraw money at any ATM with any of our debit cards. I am furious! We should have been made aware of this fee before purchasing this card.

My husband and I have just emigrate to Canada and was told by Thomas Cook this was one of the best ways to move money $13,000 each, and when we arrived in to Canada that we could go in to any bank and draw all the cash out only injuring one charge of £2.50...................... LIE!!!! The is no bank in Canada that will do this and no way of transferring the cash to our new Canada bank account. the only way we are able to spend are own money is by having a £2.50 charge every time we spend plus the $2.50 charge from the AT. IT HURTS PLEASE DO NOT DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and good luck on your travels xx

Igot a card from Sainsburys & took another card for my daughter to take out money in South Africa. She asked ATM how much was available. It said R1624 but when she tried to draw out R1600 it came back saying there was only R24 in there. Sainsburys say she withdrew the cash. The bank in South Africa said there was a transaction but the money never came out of the machine. It did not go back to their bank but has gone into a problem account. Now I have to send in a complaint form and it will take a month, in the meantime my daughter has no Christmas present. I will never use this card again. What would have happened if I was on holiday and all my money was in some cyber account in space somewhere

For 800GBP I had to pay $1418. This was $140(total) more than their rate for an equivalent currency purchase that day. In other words they charged $140 for this card. I tried it in six different ATMs in Liverpool. All of them rejected the card. I called the contact number. They were helpful, but within seconds of me telling them that the card is not working, the agent said 'must be a faulty card- we can get you another card in 3-4 buisiness days or we can transfer money to western union and you can collect if from there'. I collected cash from Western Union. The speed with which the agent reached the conclusion that the 'card must be faulty' ' makes me wonder if the card was meant to work at all or is it just a convenient way for Travelex to loot us of more money

OMG where to start On hols in Tarragona Spain my husband his his wallet stolen. in this was the Travelex Passport Card with no PIN number written anywhere near the wallet or card. We tried to contact the card service team (2 hours) but the money had all been withdrawn in 3 transactions from an ATM machine. ( god knows how because they did not have the PIN no). Got a police report and came home to call Travelex, unhelpful staff and we were told to fill in a dispute form. This was done and after several attempts to speak to someone rather than a machine we were told NO money would be refunded as they say the PIN no was with the card. NO IT WAS NOT This is only half the story but to put it writing in fluent English would be a nightmare. HOW DO I PROVE THEM WRONG AND GET A REFUND

I was on vacation in Italy and Greece and the card was refused so many times that I just gave up using it. Travelex wouldn't return the money without their fees regardless. Not sure how reputable they are. Regardless I would never waste my time of money purchasing that card again for an overseas trip. Worthless and expensive, and the company has little or no customer service.

I had 3 cards stolen from inside a zipped bag i was carrying. I contacted the local spanish police and they took my details only they did nothing, my pin was at home in England and I was the sole user.I contacted the cashpassport office within the hour of the theft to cancel my cards . Too late the money had gone, apparently in any country you DO NOT NEED A PIN TO USE THESE CARDS or any other bank cards etc they just SWIPE THE CARD AND SIGN and your money has gone. The cashpassport office knew it couldnt be me using the cards as i was calling from my hotel with the manager and the cards were used 20 miles away.The office said i had to wait 7 days then they would send me a DISPUTE FORM then they could investigate the usage of the cards, meanwhile i had no money and i still had 5 days left in spain they offered no help whatsoever. ABSOLUTE WASTE OF TIME AND THE CARDS ARE NO SAFER THAN CARRYING CASH!!!!!!!!!

We looked at the money card for a trip to Australia. Sister in law said she had tried it and ended up with no card and £600 being taken from her account....ok, so maybe that was a one off? Don't you believe it! Went through the order of the money card and was told that they "couldn't verify our address".....ok, let's try the currency option instead...same problem! Oh well, we will just have to shop elsewhere. HOWEVER....£1100 taken out of our account! One week later and we are still waiting for our money back. Travelex say that there is absolutely no record of the transaction....very helpful! Now have had to get the bank to fax over a record of the debit with TRAVELEX written beside it......Uttterly rubbish! Why on earth would they take the money before the order has even been completed? A rip off maybe?