There could be quite a few different prices available for travel. How can you ensure you will get the very best rates? What charges may be hidden in what you will pay? Will the South Africa Rand Travelex Cash Passport provide you with the value you want to see when you’re traveling?
You should not buy into myths about commission-free travel money.
Don’t fall for the hype of commission-free travel money. Most people believe that offers of a zero commission translate to there being no exchange rate margin and that they will not be responsible for 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?
If you should make any additional stops during your travels to South Africa, or if you return with an available balance on your card, it is a sure bet that you will want to be able to spend that money in places other than South Africa. Using the card outside of South Africa means you’ll have to pay the Travelex Cash Passport foreign exchange fees. If you have 500 left on your Rand card that you want to cash in, you’ll have to pay a fee of 28.75 just to get your money back!
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 did a little investigation of the Travelex Cash Passport rates, selecting 11:30 a.m. on 12th May 2010 as a random sample, and discovered the following:
The online selection allowed you to add to your Travelex Cash Passport Rand card at 10.752 rand to one pound sterling, near but not equal to the interbank exchange rate of 11.2087 being offered at that same time as listed on XE.com. So Travelex’s margin for this transaction was 4.07%. So much for the commission-free travel cash, huh?
But if you instead chose to charge your card at Heathrow airport on that same date, you would have received 10.1527 rand per pound sterling which is 9.42% less than the interbank exchange rates that were being reported by XE.com. 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?
Since Rand Travelex Cash Passport apparently doesn’t provide good value for your money, this isn’t to say that travel money cards are a poor choice altogether. We’ve checked out lots of different money card options and the one stand out in all of them is the FairFX Anywhere Card.
Why would you want to pick the FairFX Anywhere Card over any others?
The travel money value of the FairFX Anywhere Card is unmatched by any of the others. The average exchange rate is usually only 0.25% away from the interbank exchange rates and you won’t be asked to pay a foreign exchange fee. 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.
How much could you save by getting a 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. Your total actual savings will vary based on the exchange rates of the day, but this is a good example of the amount you can save by choosing the FairFX Anywhere Card instead.
Make sure you get a lower price with south africa travel money, and have a look at our table, which lays out all the charges and costs with different card suppliers.
categories: travel money,south africa,rand,foreign exchange,travel tips,finance
