Credit & Debit Card
When traveling the world, expenses associated with purchasing products or making online transactions can add up unnecessarily. You might wonder why? Allow us to explain.
While a credit card might seem like the solution to all your payment needs, it’s important to note that regular credit cards come with transaction and commission fees when used in another currency. This applies to every online transaction, in-store payment, and cash withdrawal. Just imagine accumulating extra costs for each transaction over multiple years. We estimated that during our world trip, these additional expenses (the transaction and commission fees) could reach around €5000.
The solution? Well, not a perfect one, but you can significantly reduce costs by choosing the right credit card, or in our case, a debit credit card. You may have heard of it – it functions like a credit card, but you need to preload it with a balance (you can only spend what’s on it). Among the available options, we chose the Mastercard debit card from N26. In our opinion, this was the only suitable debit credit card available at the time we left, offering the lowest costs and maximum user options.
To summarize the features of the N26 card: it is available in both virtual and physical formats, cash withdrawals in another currency cost only 1.7% of the transaction, online payments and in-store card payments in another currency are free of charge. The N26 account is free, topping up money is easily done through a bank transfer and free of charge, and the limits are reasonable: cash withdrawals are €200 per transaction with a maximum of €900 per 24 hours, online payments have a maximum of €1000 per 24 hours.
Other providers of debit credit cards, such as the Revolut card, Openbank eCommerce, and R42, have less appealing features, usually involving higher transaction costs in foreign currencies, extra surcharges for weekend transactions, additional fees above a certain amount, and charges for topping up your debit credit card. The N26 debit credit card is our primary method of payment and the only card used so far; we use it for all online transactions, cash withdrawals, and in-store payments.
Another important note: each country has its own payment system, meaning that major payment brands are not universally accepted. To address this, we carry all major payment brands with us, ensuring adaptability if one is not supported in a particular country. This means we have, alongside our N26 card which is a Mastercard, a backup VISA credit card and a regular Maestro credit card. For debit cards, we each have a VPay debit card and a Maestro debit card. This way, there is always a card that can be used based on the payment system supported in the country.
Lastly, we also maintain a free PayPal account linked to our debit card. It has been common for us to encounter issues making online payments when the credit or debit card is not issued from the specific country. However, PayPal is often accepted, allowing us to bypass this issue. Additionally, for transferring money to another person from a different country, PayPal has proven to be the easiest and fastest solution while being abroad.