The best cards to use abroad

Thanks for putting this list together, Simon. It's easy to forget about extra fees and charges when using credit cards abroad, which has the potential to add a lot of extra expenses to a trip. Being knowledgeable about the fees a card incurs seems like it could help combat that.

Regarding the Halifax Clarity Credit card, I got this one after it was recommended on another site when Nationwide debit card started charging fees when used abroad. In November 2010, I received a letter telling me that any payments that I made to the card would be set against whichever items had the highest interest rate first. As cash withdrawals are the only transaction type that they charge interest for from day one, I naturally assumed that if I were to pay back a cash withdrawal, then my payment would be credited against that transaction type first. So, I decided to withdraw cash whilst on holiday in Tenerife and paid it back the next day. I expected to be charged 1 days interest but actually got charged 1 month's interest. The explanation that I got was that their system splits my account in to buckets for each transaction type but instead of checking what the cash withdrawal bucket balance was at the time I paid the money back, their system looks to see what the cash withdrawal bucket balance was at the time of my last statement. As it was zero at that time, it allocated my payment to the purchases bucket. This is obviously a complex and illogical explanation which appears to be in clear breach of their credit card rules. I took it up with their customer services and complaints department and they took another look when I told them I wished to close my account, but with no improved explanation or calculations that I had asked for. Given that the interest was trivial, the cost of the phone calls was more than the interest so there was no point me pursuing it, but obviously there could be loads of people who don't pay off in full who may not be getting charged the correct amount. To describe a credit card as "clarity" and have such a mind-boggling complex rules for crediting payments to your account is in my opinion ridiculous.

I prefer the pre-paid cards as you know exactly how much you have on your card and how much you're spending. With no charges and a good rate of exchange when you load the card. Credit cards have got to be the most expsnsive way of spending money abroad. With prepaid cards, you get the best of both worlds.