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Supercard from Travelex is now available – the end of FX credit card charges?

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Back in March I wrote about the forthcoming launch of Supercard from Travelex.  It is very rare that a totally revolutionary payment product comes along but this could be it.

As you (hopefully) know, almost all UK credit, debit and charge cards add a 3% fee when you buy something abroad.

There are only a handful of cards which waive this fee.  There are a few free options, such as the Post Office Platinum and Halifax Clarity. There is only one credit card in the UK which offers reward points and no FX fees and that is the Lloyds Avios Rewards card (review here). You need to pay a £24 annual fee for that.

Supercard

Supercard is different. It can be used anywhere where a Visa card is accepted. Your purchase is translated into Sterling as the standard Visa / MasterCard rate and charged to any UK credit or debit card you nominate. You will receive the usual rewards from that card.

Let’s imagine spending $150 in New York. If you use your Marriott MasterCard, you would be charged £103 based on a $1.50 exchange rate. Use Supercard – with your Marriott card linked to it – and your Marriott card would be charged just £100.

Supercard does away with the need to keep a separate credit card just for overseas purchases. You would earn reward points on every overseas purchase (assuming you linked a rewards credit card!), you would have spare credit available – by cancelling your Post Office or Halifax card – to apply for another rewards card and you would have one less bill to manage each month.

Back in March you could pre-register your interest via the Supercard website.  I did that, but have not received notification yet.

However, as an eagle-eyed reader spotted, the app is now available to download.  The links to the iOS and Android apps are on this page.  It is not in the iOS app store yet – you need to follow the link.

As of 11pm last night, when I wrote this, it was misbehaving and would not let me register.  The reader who sent me the link had been able to register OK.

Only a limited number of registrations are being taken at the moment so act sooner rather than later if you want to be in the first wave and get the card in time for your next foreign trip.

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Comments (236)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • pj says:
    14 May14 May 08:22

    Not sure exactly why I would need a mobile phone to accompany the physical card.

    Any ideas?

    • Alan says:
      14 May14 May 08:26

      I thought the idea was that you used the app to pick which of your existing debit/credit cards the physical Supercard was linked to?

      • pj says:
        14 May14 May 09:02

        Then you’ll be incurring phone charges so it’s not as brilliant on cost as people are saying.

        Factor in a minute from your foreign location as a minimum.

        • Alan says:
          14 May14 May 09:08

          Why? Just use free WiFi! Also I think you’ll only need to use the app if changing card, not for every transaction.

  • Rob says:
    14 May14 May 10:09

    If you have a PO or Halifax card, you can now ditch it (freeing up credit and having one less bill to pay) AND start earning points on your overseas spend. It would also make it easier to hit spend targets such as £10k for Hilton Gold on their Visa.

    If you have the Lloyds card, you can now save £24 by ditching it. If your holiday hotels accept Amex then, admittedly, you might want to keep it anyway as the rate is still good. Given how poor the MasterCard rate is on the Lloyds card, though, you’d be better off redirecting that spend to a Tesco MasterCard via Supercard.

    • Mark says:
      14 May14 May 17:31

      Maybe not. It depends on how much worse the Visa vs MasterCard rates are on average. If the 1-2% I found yesterday is at all indicative earning an additional 0.35avios/£ would mean you are effectively paying between 3 and 6p/avios when directing the spend to a standard Tesco MasterCard via Supercard vs the Lloyds card.

      The £24/year is likely to be easily recoverable via Amex deals.

      • Rob says:
        14 May14 May 23:33

        I would be surprised if the rates differ based on what they have said. Only way to check this, of course, is to make 2 identical transactions in the same shop at the same time with two different cards.

        • Mark says:
          15 May15 May 13:27

          There is another way to tell without spending anything.

          MasterCard rates are published here. If you have a MasterCard that applies no exchange loading this is exactly what you would have got on any given day: https://www.mastercard.com/global/currencyconversion/

          Visa rates are likewise published here:
          http://www.visaeurope.com/making-payments/exchange-rates

          It’s a bit more fiddly to compare Amex. If you have an Amex issued card you can log into your account and use the ‘Check Foreign Transaction Exchange Rates’ option from the Information & Help drop down.

          • Mark says:
            15 May15 May 14:05

            I think I may previously have been looking at the Visa Inc rates, not Visa Europe (which I’m assuming is what will be applied).

            Taking yesterday’s rates for a GBP card, one Euro would have cost:

            MasterCard: 72.39p
            Visa: 72.10p
            Amex: 72.30p

            So Visa in this instance would have been a little cheaper (~0.4%).

            One US dollar would have cost:

            MasterCard: 63.25p
            Visa: 63.98p
            Amex: 63.98p

            So here Visa and Amex are both about 1.2% more expensive than Mastercard.

            Going back a week, the Euro rates on 7/5 were:

            MasterCard: 74.23p
            Visa: 74.18p
            Amex: 74.57p

            So, again very little in it but Visa is cheaper.

            For US dollars, again on 7/5:

            MasterCard: 65.60p
            Visa: 66.09p
            Amex: 66.05p

            Visa here was about 0.7% more expensive than Mastercard.

            It’s difficult to do a wider analysis without an easy way to harvest the rates in bulk. We’re talking about very small amounts of money of course unless your overseas spend is huge, but in the context of whether (and how much) you could be paying for any points return it could be material.

          • Mark says:
            15 May15 May 18:04

            From the Terms and Conditions it is the Visa Europe rate:

            “5.8. Supercard will not charge additional fees or FX mark-up for a foreign transaction and the Visa Europe Exchange Rate will be used to convert foreign transactions to GBP.”

            So on that basis the comparison immediately above should be indicative, and therefore doesn’t compare as badly as I first thought.

  • Martin says:
    14 May14 May 10:26

    I tried all day from yesterday morning until the early hours of the morning and could not complete registration. Must have tried 200+ times.

    My partner on the other hand got it done in a handful of attempts yesterday afternoon.

  • Max says:
    14 May14 May 10:57

    I tried again today and was able to successful register (I was also one of those who pre-registered my interested a while ago). Maybe they’ve ironed out some of the IT glitches from yesterday.

  • Max says:
    14 May14 May 12:10

    It took me many attempts to get through the screens as it often said there was an error but I’m there now and awaiting my card in the post

  • roger says:
    14 May14 May 12:43

    I’d never heard of it until I saw it on the MSE website. I managed to register eventually and have an email saying it’s on it’s way. Hurrah. Lucky me hey?

    • Roger says:
      14 May14 May 14:58

      This Roger HAD heard of Supercard and pregistered some weeks ago. After I saw Raffles’s news, I applied using his link and ultimately succeeded.

      Then got the message from pre-registration telling me the offer was live and all I needed to do was register.

      Not joined up …

  • JoshUK says:
    14 May14 May 12:50

    I’m in the same boat as a couple of people above–got through all the details to final screen (choosing password, etc) and couldn’t get through. But now when I open the app, it simply says “Congratulations, Your SUPERCARD is now in the post and on the way to you…”

    Still no emails though. Anyone else in this boat actually contact Travelex and find out the situation?

    Thanks.

  • jameslon says:
    14 May14 May 13:30

    OK, here’s how I managed to get it to work on iOS.
    1. If you have already installed the app, remove it from your phone, and re-install from the App Store.
    2. Register your details (it should now work). Quit the app (swipe up), re-start, and then the Congratulations screen should re-appear with your name and card number showing.
    Hope it works for others.

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