Originally Posted by
MASTERNC
Doesn't that defeat the purpose? I thought the advantage of Revolut was a better exchange rate than with a credit/debit card (even without a FTF). Besides, wouldn't you risk taking a loss if both conversions aren't at the same FX rate?
Revolut was never that good of a card for general spend. As a prepaid debit card, there are no special benefits (CDW, purchase protection, etc.). It's also currently far more of a pain to use in the US than a normal chip and signature credit card because of the PIN. I'm not even talking about outright rejections by merchants, though that's happened to me a couple of times--rather, small things like being forced to walk to the back of a restaurant to enter a PIN and hoping that the server didn't accidentally screw themselves out of their tip, or terminals at normal stores that aren't exactly positioned well enough to be easily handed to customers.
To me, there are exactly two good use cases for Revolut:
- DCC avoidance in the UK at merchants that don't take AmEx (not that DCC is a problem there in the first place), and
- Those rare cases where a foreign merchant simply voids the transaction attempted with another card because a signature slip printed out--and you don't want to waste a hard pull on one of the two or so credit cards that will always ask for PIN. (Considering that those cards have rewards structures such that you may never be able to redeem points for much, a hard pull might very well not be worth it for such a rare circumstance.)
For #2, what amounts to a 3% FTF might be better than simply not being able to complete the transaction at all. Though it's always a good idea to carry some amount of cash anyway, so even then that might not be a good use.