The Best & Worst Travel Cards For Summer 2026

Summer 2026 is officially here, and so are the hidden fees waiting to ambush your holiday budget! In this episode of Banking Without Borders, we pull back the curtain on international spending to ensure your next vacation is as fee-free as possible. We break down the exact anatomy of a perfect travel card, expose the legacy banks secretly draining your wallet, and dive into why the most popular fintech giants might not actually be your best option abroad.

What We Cover:

• The 4-Point Travel Card Checklist: The essential features your card needs before you board a flight.
• Legacy Banks vs. Challenger Banks: Why traditional accounts from Barclays, Lloyds, NatWest, and HSBC are costing you—and the free alternatives we highly recommend.
• The Wise & Revolut Debate: A transparent look at weekend markups, variable fees, and why they might not be the ultimate answer to international spending.
• Predatory ATMs & The DCC Trap: How to outsmart Dynamic Currency Conversion and avoid paying double fees at the terminal.

Revolut vs WISE: Who Has The Best Travel Card? https://www.buzzsprout.com/2458086/episodes/19324904

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Jan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-watermann/

Jonny: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonny-pease

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay, welcome back to another episode of Banking Without Borders. Summer 2026 is here, everybody, as you can tell from the moisture on my brow. Um and today we're going to talk about the best and worst travel cards, including the UK and Europe. We'll cover four things that make a good travel card so you can check yours against the list. We'll speak about why we don't recommend WISE and Revolute, and share some important travel spending tips to make sure you have the most fee-free summer vacation possible. So, Jan, let's just begin with what makes a good travel card.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Joining there are four points that you have to look out for when choosing a travel card. The most important one, in my opinion, is that there is no fixed foreign transaction fee, which is yeah, often the case of legacy banks. Typically, that's a flat percentage that's being being added onto every purchase that you make abroad. As an example, you buy something for 100 pounds abroad or 100 euros, you know, have a 3% foreign transaction fee, for example, then you'd be paying £103 for this. On a good card, this is zero, so that's something you have to definitely look out for. Second most important thing is the exchange rate. Look for a card that uses visas or mastercards exchange rate. Those are typically very close to the mid-market rate. Um, and a good card, they pass that straight on to you. A bad card, they might add another markup that you you possibly don't even notice. Um, and then the third most important thing: fair access to cash. You don't need to be able to withdraw thousands of euros or pounds internationally. That's nowadays not important, but getting cash for a reasonable rate. That's that's something you should definitely look out for. So ideally, you have at least 500 pounds or euros um free ATM withdrawals every month. And then the fourth most important thing, make sure there are no additional surcharges. Banks get very creative when it comes to surcharges. There could be weekend surcharges, that could be transaction caps. You know, after let's say reaching a thousand pounds of transactions per month, there might be a fair usage fee that applies, etc. So look out for that. Keep an eye out. Um, people that use Revolute, they know what I'm talking about. But there are also other providers that offer this. Um so yeah, keep these four things in mind when choosing your card.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

And I've got four providers now from the UK that exemplify these things to avoid. Now, some of them, yes, do have tiers or options available that could arguably make for good travel cards, but fundamentally, at their core, their basic, most standard options, charge fees or non-sterling transaction fees. Barclays are a good example, Yan. They charge typically 2.99% on purchases and cash withdrawals. They do offer specific travel focused cards, but they're quite difficult to unearth. And I think in most cases, people holding a Barclays debit card are ch are paying fees internationally. Um, so if that's you or if you have a Barclays debit card, do double check that before you're spending abroad. Lloyds, they do have some options. Club Lloyd's at £5 per month gives you the option to spend internationally without fees, but typically they're charging 2.99% on their standard and classic account. They've also got the £7 a week, I think, Jan. Travel Smart add-on. Wow, £7 per week. Oh, that's expensive, Johnny. That's yeah, that's weird. That's a n that's a weird one. NatWest have also got this weird bolt-on as well. Typically they charge 2.75% on cash uh withdrawals and spending. Um, some accounts do waive the transaction fee, but they never waive the ATM withdrawal fee. But they have the travel account, which is EUR and USD only, and it's essentially a bolt-on that you activate and it links to your physical and virtual debit cards. Will enable you to spend fee-free internationally, but will only allow you to withdraw up to 200 um dollars or euros every 30 days. That's NatWest being generous, everybody. Thanks, NatWest. HSBC also a bit of the same as well: 2.75% on international spending, plus I think a 2% cash withdrawal fee, or a minimum of £1.75. They do have also some accounts that are available. They've got the Global Money account, of course, where you could hold your multi-currency wallet and you could hold and spend money internationally, and you know, you could convert currencies at a decent uh exchange rate. But generally speaking, HSBC, NatWare, Sparkley's, Lloyd's, classic legacy banks offering you quite high fees for spending internationally, at least on their most basic tiers. Yeah, and it's not like these banks are entirely awful. Like I said, they do have options that are available, but they require you to switch, they require you to go up a tier and spend money, um, and they're banking on you um not bothering.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

That's a big, big disadvantage considering that there are also plenty of options available where you don't have that complexity, where you just sign up, it's free, you get an excellent travel card that you can use all over the world without paying any fees. And let's start with four that we highly recommend. Number one, Starling. We've talked about Starlink many, many times on the podcast. Great option, great for international spending. There's zero fees involved. Um, and you also get 300 pounds per day in ATM withdrawals for free all over the world. So this is really good all rounder. Chase is also great, chase UK. Um, pretty similar, also, no fees on spending. You're getting fee-free ATM withdrawals that are kept at 500 pounds per day or 1500 pounds per month, so a little bit more restrictive on the monthly limit. First direct is also excellent. 0% FX fees, it's very similar to Starling, actually. You get £500 per day. Plus, they have a great switch bonus right now. I believe it's £200, it's expiring next week. So have a look at depositscout.com. You can see um yeah, what switch offer or what are the details of this switch offer, and then can decide whether first direct might be a good option for you. I recommend it personally.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Monzo is also really good. Just to jump in on first direct, you've got to watch out for that credit card though. Make sure you pick the right plastic because their credit card still charges 2.99% Yan.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Oh, that's a fair point, Johnny. Internationally, it's just worth it. That's a fair point. Should have raised this. Um, use the debit card for international spending. Do not use the credit card. Monzo, also a really good option. 0% FX fees. Cash. You can, yeah, relatively restrictive. It's a little more complicated with Monzo when it comes to cash withdrawals. It depends whether you use Monzo as your main bank account or your supplementary account, and it depends on the tier you're on. But you're getting somewhat between 200 and 600 pounds of ATM withdrawals, which could be enough for most people. But you know, let's say you're traveling to a cash-heavy destination, you might want to rethink whether it could be worth getting first direct, for example, or another provider that offers a more generous cash limit instead.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

People that are fans of nationwide might be wondering why Jan hasn't mentioned them. Britain's biggest building society, super popular, millions of members. Great bank, really is a great building society, fantastic. Uh except when it comes to travel, Jan, it's a little bit disappointing. The everyday accounts, the Flex account and the popular Flex Direct, which comes with a 5% regular saver, they all charge 2.99% abroad. So it's just like the big banks. Which it's kind of disappointing. And the only fee-free account is the Flex Plus account, and that's packaged at about, I think, 18 pounds per month, um, or 216 pounds a year. The other free ones, uh the other fee-free ones, sorry, that you could use for international spending from nationwide are like Flex Student, Flex Graduate, Flex One, and they these are gated behind being a student or under 25. You know, it's not necessarily like it's all bad. The Flex Plus account is good. You know, for 18 pounds a month, you get worldwide family travel insurance, AA, UK, and Europe breakdown. You know, you get family phone cover. Um, and if you're gonna buy all of that anyway, you're interested in getting that, just bundle it up and check out that account. But generally speaking, um, nationwide is not a good option for international spending. Another card, Jan, that we've talked a lot about that really stands out, and I like it because it has greater accessibility beyond the UK. And we're we're gonna speak about the European Union now, and this card is included in that umbrella. Trading 212, mate. You know, this card is issued by Painetics, which provide all the payment services, while T212 provides customer support and the user interface of the app. And the card itself comes with an invest account.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Yeah, that's the biggest advantage, the availability of this card, Johnny. And it comes with zero of X fees, you're getting the true interbank rate. ATM withdrawals are free up to 400 pounds and 400 euros per month. After that, it's a 1% fee. So it's very competitive in general. Plus, they allowed you to hold multiple currencies at once. Really good card. I would highly recommend personally. Um, and if you're interested in signing up, use the sponsored link that we have in our description box right below, or the show notes if you're listening to this. Um, and you can apply the code BWB to get a £25 cash bonus after your first transaction over £5. So that's really competitive. Good head start to use that account, and good choice overall. You know what else is a good choice, Johnny? Trade Republic.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

It's a solid travel card with cashback as well, which we know trading two on two appear to have paused. So if you're interested in cash back while you travel, this could be a good option.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Johnny, you're right. One thing I would like to correct though, it's not called cash back, it's called save back. And that's one fact. Um you have to actually commit to an investment plan if you want to take advantage of this 1% of save back that they're offering on up to 1500 euros per month. A lot of people already have investment savings plans, so for them it's not an issue at all. Um what Trade Republic does is basically they they would reinvest your uh your 1% onto the amount you're already saving slash investing. Um, so basically you get to save more. I think that's not a huge downside considering it's an absolute free account, um, it's a fully functioning current account as well. Zero of X fees, you're getting the visa exchange rate, free ATM withdrawals without any limit, as far as I can tell. Um, one thing to keep in mind though, anything below 100 euros triggers a one euro fee, so it's not good for small withdrawals. But to be honest, I can live with that. It's not a big disadvantage. We've talked about Trade Republic recently, and yeah, I think it's great. If it's available in your country, take a look. Compared with trading two on two, make a wise decision, ideally. And um yeah, good option overall.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Speaking of wise decisions. Wise decisions. Well, speaking of wise and revolute, uh it's the elephant in the room, right? You're doing a travel card video, right, Jan? We're talking all things travel spending, international spending, but we wouldn't necessarily recommend two providers that are arguably marketed as the ultimate travel, the ultimate answer to not paying fees while you're spending internationally. Why is that, Jan? Why do we not recommend Revolute and why?

SPEAKER_01 10:57

There are just better options out there. I think that's that's what it comes down to. So Revolute standard, that's their free account, comes with a 1% weekend markup. Let's start with that. That's absolutely yeah, that's already disqualifying the product for me because on I don't want to think about the weekday before I make a transaction while traveling. Um, that's absolutely, yeah, that's not ideal. It's not comfortable. I don't want to do that. Then there's a £1,000 per month free exchange limit. After that, a 1% fair usage fee applies, and that's on top of the the exchange rate you're already using, which is the revolute rate. It's not the mid-market rate. It's typically, it typically varies. It's not terrible, but it's not the mid-market rate. And it's worse than Visas or MasterCards exchange rate. So um, yeah, applying a fair usage cap onto that, boy, not sure about it. You're also only getting 200 pounds of uh fee-free ATM withdrawals per month. Afterwards, it's 2%, I believe. Not sure these are deal breakers, but I think so. I would not use that account as a travel card.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

I think the only deal breaker is whether or not you can get something better. Because if you can't, then I understand why you'd go with Revolut or wise. Perhaps if Revolut is the only option available in your country or region, then maybe you should look at upgrading to say Revolut Premium, for example, where you can get fee-free currency exchange. Um, there's no weekend surcharge, etc. It becomes a pretty solid travel card. There are some other benefits, and it's only going to cost you seven pounds, which arguably you might spend in fees anyway when using Revolut Standard Internationally. So that could be a good option, Jan.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

It's the same for Wise, isn't it? You know, they're probably arguably a bit more open or transparent about the exchange rate. It's the real mid-market rate, which is going to be better than Visas or MasterCards. But they're also going to charge you a variable fee every time you transact or exchange currencies, which is where you will see, find, you'll find yourself probably spending more than if you were just using a card that was using MasterCard or Visa's exchange rates like Trade Republic or Starling, etc. etc. So it's that variable fee from Wise that will begin to mount up. There's also ATM withdrawals with WISE, they are pretty limited. You can only withdraw up to £250 per month with WISE. After that, it's um I think 2.69% fee. And of course, some ATM providers may also charge a fee, so you're looking at a double fee. So WISE, again, Revolut, again, okay, if there's no other option, of course, and far better than some of the legacy providers I mentioned at the start of the show. And if you want more detail, we talked about WISE and Revolute specifically in a video just a few weeks ago. I'll link that one below, and you can see our full analysis where we looked at the exchange rates that they're offering and we compared the two. Um, that's yeah, really interesting. It was a really fun episode, so I definitely recommend watching that one next. We might want to interject, Jan, that you know, someone with Revolut Ultra, for example, shouldn't be disheartened, nor should you be someone that's committed to the tiered plans of Revolut, right? Because you'll get, you know, fee-free currency exchange, greater ATM withdrawal thresholds, um, and you're just having to sort of handle the Revolut exchange rate, which has its own margin. Um, but I think if you're deriving so much value from those plans in terms of the subscriptions and the other things that they offer, using them to spend internationally is probably fine. I think. I don't know, buddy, what do you think? If if if someone with Revolut Ultra comes in, comes and asks you, should I use this as a travel card or should I use Starling or Chase, let's say two providers using MasterCards, exchange rates, what would you recommend? Just purely on travel spending?

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Well, it's a good question. If they're collecting ref points with Revolut already and they're having a use case for that, then that could be probably the better option. But yeah, you have to still consider that the Revolute rate is not the mid-market rate, and you're getting the same exchange rate that you would get with Revolute Standard, even if you subscribe to their expensive Revolut Ultra plan. So it's you know it's a matter of of just looking looking at the benefits and weighing weighing what makes more sense for you based on that.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

And of course, if you're gonna be using your Revolute card abroad or you're gonna be using any of the travel cards we've mentioned, there is something extremely important, Jan, when you go to transact, and just simply selecting the incorrect choice could just destroy you financially. It's not that extreme.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Dynamic currency conversion, DCC, that's the keyword. That's what you have to keep in mind when you travel, when you transact, um, when you withdraw money in general. So basically, what that is is the the car terminal or the ATM operator asking you whether you would prefer to pay in your home currency. So whether that's euro or whether that's the the British pound, doesn't really matter. They would handle a conversion for you, and you might think, Oh, that's convenient. I know how to calculate in British pounds on euros. You know, you do that at home all the time. It's easy, right? But what you don't know, or what many people don't know, is that there is a that's a trick, and they basically apply an exchange rate that's that's way worse than the mid-market rate. Often three to eight percent, I think it can be up to sixteen percent, really depends on where you transact as well. Um, so that's something you have to avoid. You have to avoid this. This is more important than than picking the right travel card. This is the main thing.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Exactly, because even if you pick the right travel card, if you choose to pay in your home currency rather than the local currency, then you're just gonna you probably get uh a card or a result that's twice as worse as Barclays, potentially or HSBC or any of those providers I talked about at the start. You also, Jan, get the same question of DCC, this option to pay in the local currency or your currency when you're withdrawing from an ATM. That's important to mention. Whether you are going to um a Euronet ATM, which we're all familiar with, their exchange rates are absolutely dreadful. I've talked about them for many years. Jan, you've touched on them before as well. Do not use those. We'll put some images up of what they look like for those that are watching. But listeners, blue, the Euronet is yellow. Try to avoid those. You could withdraw money from them if you had to. Just make sure you pay in the local currency. God, they take you through this awful flow of questions that are really trickery and and then designed to make you make bad choices. But they ultimately, if you can skip all of those, they'll just charge you like a fixed fee to withdraw of like five euros perhaps if you're in Italy. But there are ATMs also available that you can use that in some cases don't charge you to withdraw money. Like in Ital in Italy, Ann, Poste Italiana, I believe is how it's not pronounced, um, don't charge a fee, or at least that was my experience last time I was in Sicily. So I could withdraw money, made sure I paid in the local currency, I used my styling card and I was just getting cash just for fun, you know, coming out of the ATM, pouring out, and I was just getting it for nothing. Do you have any examples, Jan? Like I like Post Italiana, in Germany, for example, are there any ATMs that are kind of you know it would be free for tourists?

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Johnny, I have no idea to be honest. Uh what I can recommend though is, you know, if you're with a with a legacy bank or something and you're trying to withdraw money, um, you know, let's say even even with a legacy-owned bank like First Direct, take a look if you find an HSB C ATM. I'm not sure there are many in Germany, but you might find one in Frankfurt or so. Who knows? But um, you know, Deutsche Bank, there are many international banks that operate in in multiple countries, and you might find one of these ATMs there, and it could be that you can withdraw for free. It really depends though. So take a look uh at forums, travel blogs, make a research in advance, and then do it.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Something we don't have in the UK or or the EU, correct me if I'm wrong, Jan, or anyone in the comments, please jump in. We don't have the sort of the bank ATM refund that you get in the States. I think Charles Schwab offered this. There might be some others. Please again comment below if you know them, if if you're watching on YouTube at least. But that would be nice, wouldn't it? If if if banks I guess we don't necessarily require that, at least in the UK, because you know there are options, you know, where you don't pay fees for withdrawing money directly through your bank. But that's something that we don't have here.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Well, Johnny, if you're traveling to Thailand, for example, every ATM has a fee, right? And there are countries where that's the case, um, and you'd be still paying a fee because you can't find a free ATM anywhere in the country, it just doesn't exist. Um, so this is a really good um really good benefit. And if a if a bank provides it, I know in Germany DKB used to provide that. Um not sure if they still do that. I don't think so, actually. I think they discontinued that, but um, you used to be able to um yeah to just uh basically send them your receipt, the the ATM slip, and then they would refund you the fee. And that was amazing. And Charles Schwabsu does that in the States and a few others as well. Um so good option if it's available to you.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Do you think if if a trend started to happen where more and more countries were charging a fee on every ATM, we would see even maybe banks in the UK respond by offering, you know, you could offer as a marketing ploy, you know, to give your customers refunds on ATM fees. Maybe it's just not such a national or sorry global phenomenon. Phenomenon for for I think it is normally just very expensive.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

I think that's why you don't see that as a marketing play with every bank. It's really expensive, and I think these these banks that offer that they pay quite a lot for it.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

And a lot of banks today are offering better travel cards, but I'm sure, Jan, there'll be someone who's watching or listening to this whose card fails to pass the checklist that Jan mentioned at the beginning about what makes a good travel card. And if that's you, take a look at some of the options if you're in the UK, First Direct, Chase, Starling, Monzo. There's all these sort of legitimate classic providers now that are really fantastic for travel. In Europe, Trade Republic, trading two-on-two as well as accessible in the both in both the UK and EEA. What I want to know though, Jan, is what cards did we miss? Because I know that there will be people listening to this watching this that will have a card that we won't have mentioned. So please do get in the comments. What's your travel go-to? I'd love to hear from you. Like, how are you using it as well? Are you using it to access cash? How do you like to access cash when you're abroad? I think there's some awesome tips that we probably haven't unearthed as well. Like the poste italiane. Great pronunciation. Thank you. Are you familiar with any ATM branches around the world that people could access where you're probably guaranteed to get a fee-free ATM withdrawal? That could be really useful uh information, Jan, that I think people in the comments could benefit from.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Yeah, feel free to drop all your questions below. Sign up, um, subscribe, thumbs up, also join our Discord if you haven't already. We're gonna put a QR code on the screen. Lot of discussion happening there, really exciting. Um, definitely recommend it. And we'll see you in the next episode. It's been a pleasure as always. Goodbye.