Ukash Avis 136

Got a Ukash card for my student daughter who is spending 6 months in USA as part of her course. She (and I) found website overly complicated with various confusing options and I would advise anyone to leave plenty of time and not attempt any transactions in a rush! Worst of all, it was recently impossible to access the website for at least a week, and therefore we were unable to load money to the card, which is totally unacceptable when someone is abroad and relying on it. At this point we organised a different card through a competitor which has been very slick in all respects.

Had to leave 1 star but really worth none. Getting the card was fine, charge for getting your pin, can't access the card admin age to add more dollars (thankfully) and a customer service phone line that doesn't recognise any of the option key presses. Oh, did I mention the PAINFULLY SLOW email support. I will be taking my dollars on FAIRFX instead. worth the half a cent less.

This service is awful, if you are planning a long trip abroad don't go near them, for days no one could top up their pre paid cards, leaving me stranded abroad with no money, then after almost a week of the issue persisting it gets resolved, of course they blame everyone but themselves, however it gets worse not even a week goes by and now I can't top up again because they state that because its an '' unsual'' transaction, customer service is a joke, slow and your only option is to call a premium rate number, overall not worth your time and hassle.

Having registered and activated through my email I was surprised when I tried to log in and was told I was a Risk and prevented from using Ukash. Spoke to customer service who told me I failed some sort of electronic vetting...but she couldn't tell me why! With an excellent credit rating ( I pride myself on checking regularly with Equifax) I can't understand why my money isn't good enough for them. Needless to say won't be going near them again.

Everything was great but the website is confusing to use, the button to make a payment is not prominent enough so it takes a while to find....it's at the bottom of the page in small type.

Some of the other options are very similar, for example, 2 identical buttons with one marked Mastercard Prepaid Debit Card and Mastercard Holiday Money Prepaid Debit Card (or something like that) which seems easy enough as spelt out here but when they are hidden amongst a whole pile of other buttons it becomes very difficult to pick the right one.

One final thing...when paying money onto the card there were a number of occasions where the final screen where the site tries to authorise the payment, the "Authorising Payment" message box came up and nothing else happened, it just sat there doing nothing until I refreshed the screen and went through the payment process all over again.

However, all that aside, the card worked perfectly well in Ibiza this year, it's still a good value card and provided you can persevere with the above problems, the payment process is dead easy to use. I will certainly be using my card any time I go to Europe (I got the EURO card) and would recommend it to others, in fact I already have done.

Handy little card for a recent trip to the USA however, we ended up paying ATM withdrawal fees. $3 a time which soon added up and ate away at the exchange rate we got. The Ukash website does state *some operators may charge a fee for withdrawals but you'll be pushed to find one that doesn't! For info, we tried different banks ATMs in San Francisco, Cambria, Long Beach, Hollywood, Vegas and Palm Springs, all charging.
Best advice would be to take cash for restaurants and use the card for shopping.

Using the US dollar card was fine with some problems.
In the description of the card it says no fee are taken for withdrawing cash from cash machines. Well. In my case, and I tried 4 different banks in NY. I had to pay $3 per transaction.
Also, I tried many times to pay for fuel at the actual filling machine. Card was never accepted and had to see the cashier. Even then the card was only accepted when used as a credit card not a debit.

I heard about the ukash card from the money saving expert website and was so glad I went with it on my trip. Very easy to use and top up, through my own mistake I blocked the account whilst away. I called up the helpline which was free from a landline, spoke to the customer service staff and had it all sorted in a few minutes. Would highly recommend this card to friends and family, I will be using it in Europe again and will get a US dollar ukash card for when I go to America next year.

Cost me nothing to get my own money out of the wall... Hate paying to take my own money out, as if the banks don't make enough on us! Cost My in-laws on a Post office card around £50+. I ordered the card late and it came early. I transferred another £300 towards the end of the holiday and all still hassle free, it was available to take out 20 mins later. I would recommend highly... If you have a good credit rating. Not sure why credit rating matters on a prepaid card but that's how my in-laws ended up with a post office card. It's all to do with being conservative... Make the rich richer and the poor poorer!

I am thoroughly impressed with the whole ukash experience. The card was easy to load with cash and the card was accepted everywhere within Florida.

We wanted to be able to use our bank card on our trip to France but had been warned about the cost of withdrawing from cash points. With a bit of research, and advice on Martin Lewis' site, we looked into Ukash, which was a relatively new company.

We took a chance on them, as they offered what we were looking for; namely a card which could be topped up from our bank account at any time at the going exchange rate and be used in French cash machines with no extra charge. Bingo - this card did what it promised to do.

We had a little trouble getting the website to accept our password from time to time which meant topping up a bit frustrating, however restaurants, supermarkets and hotels were happy to accept the card so it meant we felt much safer than taking loads of cash or British bank cards.

First time I had used this card and I had no problems what so ever. Excellent rates and very convenient for my holiday needs. Will continue to top up my card.

Ukash offered competitive rates for US$ and was easy to top up as our trip went on. We paid for large and small items 4$ to $899 with no added charges nor where there any charges for cash withdrawal at Wells Fargo cash machines - never tried any others so don't know if they charge or not. Petrol Station pay at pump doesn't work so go in and prepay for your fuel.

UKash have a hidden top-up or transaction limit of about £6000 a month (3x maximum topup of £2000). This isn't detailed anywhere on their website and isn't in their list of limits. I only found out when I couldn't add more money to the card and contacted them to find out why. They wouldn't make an exception. As I was abroad for my wedding and honeymoon this resulted in additional FX charges of £50-100 that I had hoped to avoid by using UKash. I strongly recommend not relying on UKash as your only low commission holiday FX option.

Excellent card which worked very well for us on a recent holiday. Convenient and easy to load up and no problems with paying for goods and meals, as well as cash withdrawals at ATMs. Very pleased with this facility and would definitely recommend it. Good to know that money is secure and no need to carry lots of hard cash!

I got the UKash travel money card for my annual family holiday to France. It works really well. The exchange rate was among the best out there and the card worked almost everywhere.
The only places where the card did not work was the motorway toll booths, the automated petrol station machines and some supermarket cash machines.

I highly recommend this card, it helped us stay on budget and saved us money in fees and exchange rate loading that we would have had with other cards.

Ages (almost 3 weeks) to come; really hard to get balance; almost impossible to transfer money left on card back to bank account.

Used this card in both Crete and Germany without problems as a cash card to take money from ATM. Not used it as a debit card for shopping.

Does what it says on the tin. The exchange rate you get is clear to see.

I do load mine via mobile and it seems to want two or three sign ins to get to the point where you can load it and the load option doesn't show very clearly on mobiles either.

It is a better option than carrying large quantities of cash around with you though.

Ordered a couple of weeks before travelling, card arrived in a few days. Easy to load up and worked everywhere in France as a debit card or cash withdrawals including motorway tolls. Wasn't charged commission once.

Top ups show instantly on your statement. On one occassion I topped up through my mobile (via their website) when standing next to a cash machine then promptly withdrew Euros!

Would definitely recommend as rates were spot on too.

Ok, so it does what it says on the tin, and UKash won't charge you for cash withdrawals, although the ATMs in the US do.

You cannot get the mobile app to work with the travel money cards and you cannot change the PIN, so as long as you take this into consideration, it works fine.