Advice please about payment cards

[welsh wizard]

Hi Guys
I know this question comes up fairly often so apologies for being a nuisance! I never read the answer about pre-payment cards as we always take travellers cheques and our bank card. This year, however, we have found it impossible to obtain travellers cheques - I hate Lloyds Bank but even went so far as to go into a branch as I thought they still did them, but they don't.
Ok our situation is this:
1 night BLT all paid
10 nights OKW with DDP all paid
5 nights HRH one nights deposit paid
Taking £2,500 spending money for 5 adults.
We don't intend on eating out of site apart from one day/night SeaWorld and International Drive. This is not a shopping trip so only bits and bobs we spot and a shopping trip to Disney Springs all of which will be put on the room charge.

What we usually do is pay Disney with Traveller Cheque and put a hold on Visa Debit to room charge but pay the balance before they take it. Pay HRH with travellers cheque when we get there, we do put a hold on our visa debit but again pay the balance before they take it.

So, what I'm asking is this. Do we take about $1000 cash and leave the rest in our current account and pay with our visa debit or do we get a pre-paid card. I'm expecting to be advised to get the pre-paid card and I'm tempted with Fairfx. We are too nervous to take the money for HRH and all spending money in $$ and leave in the safe -it would make me anxious and potentially spoil the holiday with me worrying. But also what worries me is putting all our money on a pre-paid card and something go wrong. Is the money on the card safe, what if the company goes bust etc?
Thanks for any advice.

[Loftus]

Why not get a fee free credit card?

[mattyped]

FX has done us ok the last 3 years. Load up over the year always secure with no issues. As with all pre loaded cards some randoms dont accept like ihop and wallmart when they feel like it.

[400ixl]

Get a fee free credit card like the Halifax clarity Only card you need them along with cash and settle it all when you get back

[klr15]

We are using a bank at the moment called Starling, it’s an actual bank account rather than a pre paid card. We plan to take some money in cash for New York and then use the starling card to pay off the hotel and to withdraw extra money where needed or just spend on the card. I can transfer directly from my main bank account into the starling account really easily and it means we don’t need to have all our money in one place.

[Mumtotwo]

I am currently here on holiday and have a pre paid Revolut card that is linked to my bank account at home so I can top up when necessary. From the same card you can put dollars, euros and pounds on it. You can transfer across from one currency to the other using an app on your phone. Every time I make a payment I get an immediate text message to say how much I have spent. I have had no problems with it at all and have easily managed to transfer money from £s to $ whilst here.

[gold1970]

I also recently got the Revolut card, my sister swears by it. She uses it all the time in Orlando and said no shop has ever refused it. There are some you tube videos about how to use it, the fees are free or very minimal.

[Sew109]

Monzo I have tried many Monzo is the best

[Allyismad]

We’ve brought a mixture of cash, pre paid card (Post Office for us) and a Halifax clarity card. Cash is for little bits of spending and eating out. Post office pre paid is for higher cost food (like a big shop from Walmart) and clarity card for big spends e.g today in the Disney outlet shop. We will pay that off as soon as we are home. It’s working well so far.

[sam7]

Here now using revolut, love it, so easy, accepted everywhere and easy to keep track for budgeting. Also using up a few traveller cheques left over from last trip, these are a total pain, no one has seen them in ages or remembers what to do.