Spend and exchange £ and € easily with a Revolut card!
Having recently been introduced to the Revolut card and app we can’t sing its praises highly enough! It’s already saving us quite a bit of money already. Whether you live in Spain or are travelling here (or anywhere else in the world for that matter) the convenience and savings over conventional banking services are quite something.
In short, you can load your virtual wallet with GBP, EUR or USD from either a debit card or from your bank account and then spend or withdraw that money anywhere in the world using the card. It’s that simple. There are never any charges to you for spending on the card and cash withdrawals are free up to £200 per month, over that there’s a 2% fee which in our case is less than the fees we’d have to pay to use a cash machine in Spain with our UK bank card anyway.
Now for the best part if, like us, you find yourself moving money backwards and forwards between Euro and Sterling. Within the app you can exchange currency between the three major currencies that can be loaded, up to a maximum of £5000 (or local equivalent) per month free of fees (0.5% if you go over). The exchange rates are all fixed at Interbank exchange rates so you know you are getting the best deal possible at any given moment.
The app is protected by a pin (obviously) but an additional benefit, especially for travellers, is that if the card gets lost or stolen you can disable (and, should you need to, enable it back again) it instead of messing around calling banks and credit card companies back ‘home’ from your smartphone.
What’s this all cost to set up? Just £5 to get the card delivered! If you only want to use the card for online transactions you can set up a virtual card within the app for free.
This is a superb service. The only thing that could make it any better for me personally is if I was able to load the card from PayPal.
My only complaint about the service is that the scanning software for verifying ID was frankly useless. However that was quickly solved through Revolut’s live help feature where I was asked to send a photograph of my passport and a ‘selfie’. The account was authorised instantly.
This review has not been solicited by the company, this is not advertising and there are no affiliate links here… We just believe this is a service you should know about!
Alan, along with Elle, is the owner of Spain Buddy. He was born in the North of England (Lancashire) and travelled extensively before eventually settling in Almería. Alan has 3 sons from the first of his 18 marriages, (Sam, Joe & Ben) who are all now adults. You can read more articles by Alan on his personal blog at AlanGandy.com and see more of his photography on his photography website as well as on Flickr and Instagram.
Also, for less than the price of a cup of coffee each month you can help support Alan’s photography (and get some freebies into the bargain). Click here to visit his Patreon page to find out more.
February 1, 2017 @ 7:52 pm
How can I get one more f these cards as I come I Lanzarote several times a year
February 2, 2017 @ 11:47 am
Visit the Revolut website (link in the artricle above) and it will take you through step by step. It’s an “App” though – so you will probably need a smartphone tp use it once it is set up. Alan sorted ours out and we’re already saving money with Revolut’s better exchange rates and zero or low fees (we’ve not paid a fee yet). E x