To all the savvy travellers, any thoughts on which of these debit cards is better for general use in Thailand and the US. I'm tired of taking a wad of cash, and the fee's and poor rates charged by my bank (UBS) for purchases and ATM withdrawals when I travel. I was thinking to load up a card with the local currency and just use that, is that how they work, and any personal recommendation would be appreciated.
Revolut for example charged me to spend my GBP even though the money was already in GBP (because I live in Switzerland). Where as Wise only charge for the currency conversion, if the money is in GBP no charge to spend it.
Wise all day long. Had Revolut and dropped them a couple of years back. Too many problems (transfers not showing up when expected etc) encountered with the poorest customer service.
Agree. Their customer service just isn’t a service to customers First they want you to speak to a bot, but eventually when the bot realizes it can’t help you it puts you in a queue for a human. Hours later, if you persevere, you get someone who isn’t certain where Canada is.
I send my salary (or most of it) back to the UK every month with Revolut to pay my UK mortgage and stuff. No issues whatsoever for me in two years of constant use.
I barely use my main UBS debit card due to the charges and use Revolut as my go-to debit card here.
We already have a WISE account for FX transfers between UK, CH and FR, so applied for a card on that account. Went to apply for a REVOLUT, and CH is not an area listed, despite having a Swiss flag... how do folks get around that issue?
i also use Revolut but use top up from credit card, instead of manual transfer, although Revolut afaik has CH bank account too. But top up with credit card affects immediately, and i get more loyalty points from credit card.
Open the app. On the landing page you should ss a line with Accounts, cards, crypto and vaults. Click on cards and then add card. The debit card will get mailed to you, the virtual card can be used immediatly.
I have both and have been using Revolut mostly the last few years, as it was generally cheaper (free exchange, etc.)
However, now they charge to send a transfer to a non-CH bank, even if you already have money in that currency (so no forex needed) - someone above also mentioned this.
We've also had issues using the Revolut cards in Mexico a few times.
Will probably keep some funds on both and decide which is better depending on situation! (and as a backup in case of failed payment...)
Wanted to send some GBP to the UK, which I have on Revolut, and yes, now they suddenly want a fee to do the transfer. Time to start using my Wise card.
do you have the basic revolut plan? I think this is not the case with the Premium plan? Depending on how much you use it, the premium plan might be worth it. EX: if you transfer a large sum (or frequently) to EUR or GBP it might be worth looking into the premium plan
From what I checked WISE is generally worse when you add the fx rate + fees
Yes. I stopped using Revolut, because they were charging me to send and spend GBP even when the funds were already in GBP in my account.
Also, careful with Revolut at the moment as they have both Russian and Ukrainian links. Seem to be ok at the moment but who knows where sanctions will go.
Had Revolut and initially had no problems. Then I started using it for receiving GBP monthly payments from someone in the UK.
It never worked without issues. I had to request evidence of the transfer from the sender and then play the bot/human-queue game and finally Revolut would say "Yes we've found it. We will fix it".
Tried numerous things to fix the problem, none of which worked.
Switched to Wise and it worked first time and has worked flawlessly ever since.