Prepaid Debit Card for Travel abroad

Parent Cafe
21

Open a joint account at your bank. It makes it very easy to transfer funds into her account when needed (especially when they go off to college and get their monthly allowance). Also, a secret benefit is that you can go online and watch what she is spending.

However, a little warning… your bank will charge a ‘transaction’ fee on each ATM withdrawal. And, if your D does not pay attention to what ATM they are using there will be a separate $5 bank fee. So, check very carefully what the ‘sister’ banks are where she is traveling and make sure she uses that bank for ATM withdrawals. On the other hand, most credit cards do not have a transaction fee. So it is actually cheaper to do purchases with a credit card, but they cannot withdraw cash from ATMs with credit card.

It was a life saver that I kept diligent watch over my Ds account - she is studying abroad. She did not lose her credit card but somehow some slimeball got a hold of her CC nbr and suddenly there was a large KLM airline purchase from Paris to Saudi Arabia that was caught immediately. Big pain in the butt to get the card cancelled, reissued and then I had to send the card securely over to her college in France.

22

There are ATM and/or debit cards and bank accounts that will reimburse you for ATM charges, so you can use any ATM. Look into Fidelity, Schwab, and USAA as examples.

Most debit or credit cards can be used at ATMs.

Just like at home, while abroad, encourage your daughter to only use bank ATM machines as opposed to ATMs in convenience stores, restaurants, gas stations, etc. Although not foolproof, bank ATMs are less likely to be targets of skimming and other fraud.

23

Thanks everyone!

24

My kids’ checking accts are in the SAME bank as my acct, so funds transfers from my acct to theirs are immediate. By contrast, when I do an electronic transfer to an acct at a different bank, the money can takes days to post.

25

Whatever you do, check the fees. The prepaid cards can have big fees, especially when using abroad, and cashing the out at the end of the trip can be a nightmare.
When our daughters went overseas on a band trip, they used their CU debit cards and our older daughter became a signer on our visa. There were no problems at all. When we’ve been to Europe as a family, they’ve used debit cards exclusively with no problems.