Pre-pay travel cards proving popular amongst travelers

According to a recent report many travellers heading abroad from the UK are now relying on pre-pay travel cards for their spending rather than having to worry about carrying and using traveller's cheques as an alternative to cash.

Many consumers from the UK that have enjoyed spending their holidays overseas have enjoyed the ease, convenience, and security of having a pre-pay travel card states the report.

The growling popularity of these pre-pay travel cards has been highlighted by Travelex, which deals with these cards. According to officials from the company people like the ease and convenience coupled with extra security features that come with pre-pay travel cards as opposed to traveller's cheques. A spokesman stated that the cards are far simpler to use, easier to carry, and do not involve so much hassle when transactions are made.

One official from the company stated: "Traveller's cheques are still in use but people are favouring pre-paid travel cards now. Security is so good with pre-pay cards, you can use them at the point of sale, you can draw money out at ATMs, so it's just got so many advantages."

He added that consumers far prefer conducting transactions with plastic rather than paper these days – many consumers now prefer to use their debit or credit cards rather than paying by cheque.

One of the UK's leading high street banks, Barclays, recently announced that it was offering pre-pay travel cards. In the meantime, Travelex also reported a rise in the popularity of the Internet when it came to ordering foreign currency, stating that it had seen a rise of a whopping 1000% in the number of consumers purchasing foreign currency online prior to heading off abroad.


Tom Smith
10th November 2007

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