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My experiences with using the Travelex Supercard

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I was over in Amsterdam last week which gave me an opportunity to test out my new Supercard from Travelex.

As I outlined here, this is a revolutionary new Visa card which translates your foreign currency purchases into Sterling and then recharges them (in £) to another Visa or Mastercard.  You earn full reward points from the card where your transaction ends up and you save 3% on foreign exchange fees with each purchase.

Travelex is not currently taking new applications for Supercard.  The card is currently in a beta phase where a few thousand people are trying it out.

Supercard

The first thing to note is:

You can change the PIN of your Supercard at any UK ATM

Travelex does not tell you this but it works fine.

Whilst in Amsterdam I made a number of transactions:

A cash withdrawal in Euros

Machine-based transactions (ie train ticket vending machines)

Manual transactions (eg hotel, restaurants)

I had set up my Supercard so that all of the transactions were recharged to my IHG Rewards Club Premium Visa card, as I am currently working towards the free night voucher for spending £10,000.

The good news is that the Supercard worked fine every time.  It is thinner than a standard credit card, and your personal details are printed on it rather than embossed, but that was not a problem.

The even better news is that it does seem to work as promised.  The InterContinental cheekily tried to charge me €32 in £ without giving me the € option – the credit card machine showed £25-ish.  I insisted on paying in Euro and it eventually went through my Supercard at £23-ish.

The bad news is that the Supercard app has been very troublesome.  Every time I try to bring up a list of recent transactions it crashes.   I have never managed to bring up a transaction list successfully.  I am able to view my last transaction but not the full list.

Transactions are taking some time to reach my credit card statement – they process at the same speed as a normal card purchase.  The transactions were all done on Monday and Tuesday last week.  They started to hit my IHG credit card statement on Friday and, by Sunday evening, the last one had yet to arrive.

This is how they appear on my IHG card statement:

Tms Supercard NS Schiphol, Chester (NS is Dutch Railways, Chester is where Supercard is based)

Tms Supercard, Tvx Schiphol, Chester (cash withdrawal from a Travelex cashpoint)

What was most impressive is that the €120 ATM cash withdrawal has gone through my IHG Rewards Club credit card as a purchase.  This means I will earn points on it and will not pay any cash advance fees or interest.

So far, then, so good – but Travelex really needs to iron out the bugs in the app.  I would have had more confidence in the card initially if I had been able to see my transactions in real time.

The biggest test for Supercard will be in Germany next month where we will have a very large hotel bill to settle.  If that goes through OK, saving me over £100 in FX fees and probably getting me over the line for my IHG Rewards Club Premium Visa free night, I will be very happy.

PS.  In my initial article on Supercard I didn’t list the spending limits that are imposed.  These are the key figures you need to remember:

Maximum value of single ATM transaction – £250
Maximum daily ATM Cash withdrawal – £500
Maximum ATM Cash withdrawal per 4-day cycle – £1,000
Maximum daily Point of Sale Spend – £5,000
Number of Purchases per day – 15
Number of ATM Transactions per day – 3
Maximum card usage in one month – £20,000
Maximum card usage in one year – £20,000

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Comments (163)

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

  • Peaceful Waters says:
    15 Jun15 June 05:48

    Have you tried comparing the MasterCard exchange rate to the Visa exchange rate offered by Travekex?

    This seems to be the biggest weakness of the card.

    Good to know you can turn a cash transaction into a cash back / points earning opportunity though.

    • Nick says:
      15 Jun15 June 08:41

      My Satander Zero has been brilliant over the years – but looking forward to using my supercard (arrived this past Saturday- so hang in there) to withdraw cash- and this will not show up on my credit report separately as a cash withdrawal! Handy if you’re about to take on a mortgage

    • Ian says:
      15 Jun15 June 10:40

      Agree that rate is an issue.

      Used supercard in the U.S. last week and got a rate of 1.525. Used my Halifax Clarity card (M’card) on the same day with a rate of 1.555.

      Makes using the Supercard a marginal call for me.

      • Rob says:
        15 Jun15 June 10:47

        To be honest, I am always a little suspicious with examples like this because you don’t know the exact timings of the conversion. It is impossible, realistically, that the Visa and MasterCard rates would be 3 cents apart.

        Whether the published Visa central rate is always a touch worse than the published MasterCard rate is a different question.

        • callum says:
          15 Jun15 June 11:55

          It’s certainly not impossible. Use the Mastercard and visa conversion calculators and you’ll see, almost without exception, that Visa gives worse rates than Mastercard.

          The spread usually isn’t as high as 3 cents for major currencies like the dollar, but I’ve seen it before several times .

          • Mark says:
            15 Jun15 June 16:16

            If you look at http://www.visaeurope.com/making-payments/exchange-rates and https://www.mastercard.com/global/currencyconversion/ for the USD rates on a GBP card for transactions processed / settled last Wednesday (10th June) they are showing as:

            Visa Europe 1.5261
            Mastercard 1.5549

            So, yes, not far off 3 cents (or just under 2%) difference. That’s not necessarily indicative – indeed it is a bigger difference than when I looked a month or so back. From what I’ve seen EUR transactions tend to be closer in rate across the two networks than USD transactions.

            Clearly once these are applied to real transactions there will be a rounding affect as well.

            For comparison, an zero loading Amex transaction (e.g. Avios Rewards card)processed on the same day would have got a rate of 1.525, so the Visa rate is actually marginally better than that.

          • Worzel says:
            15 Jun15 June 16:54

            Thanks Mark.

            The position remains the same as we felt a while back-that there must be more in it for Travelex than just gaining information on customer spending patterns.

            Worz.

          • ADS says:
            20 Jun20 June 12:03

            is amex know for poor exchange rates ?

            i was looking at a couple of USD transactions from a day in January (both posted on the same day too) from my Lloyds Avios cards, and they used significantly different exchange rates …

            MC 1.5267
            Amex 1.5074

            a 1.3% difference seems rather a lot ?!

  • Joe says:
    15 Jun15 June 05:49

    Sounds good, Ive had the same problem with the app crashing.

    Tried using it at Le Merdian Monaco and didn’t work, so have only used it for online $ € Purchases so far, but is working well. Saving me a few quid.

    Can you see your txns on a website, as cannot see a log-in page.
    Do you know how does S.75 / Chargbacks work?

    • Peaceful Waters says:
      15 Jun15 June 06:07

      It will break the supplier chain for S75 so I’d not expect the CCA to apply.

      No protection.

    • Rob says:
      15 Jun15 June 09:47

      No, you cannot see transactions online, only in the app.

      Travelex emailed me this morning to say that they are aware of this problem and it is being fixed

  • Sam Wardill says:
    15 Jun15 June 05:57

    Surely the cash withdrawal bit is not sustainable?

  • Sam Wardill says:
    15 Jun15 June 05:58

    How did you get your pin? I have a card but no pin?

    • Mike says:
      15 Jun15 June 06:05

      The PIN is displayed via the app.

      No problems with the app crashing on Android. What version are the ones having problems using?

      • Rob says:
        15 Jun15 June 09:48

        Crashes on my iPhone 6 and my iPad, both running latest iOS.

        • Wylie. C says:
          15 Jun15 June 14:27

          I have the same problem. Only shows the last entry and details the savings. The entries don’t seem to be pulling through to my TESCO Bank MasterCard as yet either I wasn’t aware of the cash withdrawal aspect. I thought if that was done that was how TravelEx were making their money. I normally use my Santander Zero for cash and clear it when it hits the account. Although I was surprised I was charged a $3 fee from Santander machine in NY yesterday.

      • sam wardill says:
        15 Jun15 June 15:14

        I see. I have not been able to register the card due to crashes. Hence not seen the PIN

  • Alan says:
    15 Jun15 June 05:59

    Thanks for the update, Rob – my card has finally arrived. Do you know if you can change the PIN at non-UK ATMs too, or just UK ones?

    Excellent news re. cash withdrawals – that’s going to be the biggest benefit I think. For purchases I’m fairly happy at present having fee-free on my Lloyds Amex but this will be handy.

    If only IHG miscalculated the points and awarded 4x foreign transaction we’d be onto a real winner! (not beyond the realms of possibility given their dreadful IT)

  • Simon says:
    15 Jun15 June 06:07

    My cars has arrived but I am yet to use it. One issue I realised. What stops someone linking a random persons credit card to their account. Who would be liable ?

  • Martin R says:
    15 Jun15 June 06:11

    I’ve charged a meal in Dublin on Monday (8th) and a hotel in Las Vegas on Tuesday to the card and as yet I’ve not seen any transactions in my accounts.

    • Etk says:
      15 Jun15 June 06:43

      Likewise – I made a payment in dollars on the 3rd June and it STILL hasn’t hit my account.

      Unbelieveake that ATM withdrawals aren’t showing as cash, I’d be surprised if that carries on.

      • Aeronaut says:
        15 Jun15 June 14:02

        It can’t carry on!

        • Mark says:
          15 Jun15 June 16:53

          Let’s hope if it doesn’t carry on that they allow you to set up a credit card for purchases and debit card for cash withdrawals.

          Otherwise it will get messy and rather defeat the point of having the card in the first place.

  • Chan says:
    15 Jun15 June 06:45

    How are the rates?

    • Frenske says:
      15 Jun15 June 07:49

      Rates are good. Paid with Nationwide CC in Zloty got 5.65 and with Supercard 5.69 (linked to same CC) though on the next day. Due to mistake of sales person I have not been able to use both cards on same day.

      Nationwide is usually 0.10-0.20% higher than internet rate on Oanda.

      • JQ says:
        15 Jun15 June 23:31

        Nationwide and Supercard rate should be exactly the same on the same day

        • Stuart says:
          16 Jun16 June 02:17

          I would agree they should be the same on the same day, but tested it this week and seen a small difference between the two even on the same day. I couldn’t linkmy Nationwide CC rate with Supercard rates on previous/following days either, so either intra-day variation or genuinely different rates.

        • Frenske says:
          16 Jun16 June 13:31

          Okay I got finally two payments on the same day in Poland:
          – Nationwide: 5.6918PLZ for £1 (commission free credit card)
          – Supercard: 5.5910PLZ for £1

          Differences are negligible; with the 0.5% cash back using the supercard abroad is quiet attractive.

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