Papa.Lima.Echo

From my experience, you can use the chase card to withdraw at any ATM. Most ATM providers in the US charge a flat fee for withdrawals, but if you use a Chase ATM there is no fee. Likewise if you use a fee-free ATM anywhere else, there is no charge levied by Chase and you get the Mastercard daily FX rate for whatever currency you are withdrawing.

Eudemian

The BA Prepaid mastercard has horrible exchange rates when you switch your balance from GBP into EUR/ USD. That said, when you hold a GBP balance, you get the spot rate when paying in EUR (or at least I have all summer). Put a few K EUR charges through, probably saved about £200 or so in ForEx fees I'd usually pay to AmEx.

Officially I think there's meant to be a fee, but I haven't been charged any yet.

ACYYZYHZ

I typically use Curve. It's nice because it's not a bank account so it linked to your other credit cards.

marcopizzaiuolo

as other posters have mentioned, the best card out there right now for the USA is Chase UK Bank Debit Card.

On Spending is forex fee and use the MasterCard Near Perfect Exchange rate (https://www.mastercard.co.uk/en-gb/p...-currency.html) probably the same as Starling, but if you sign up now, you get 12 months 1% cashback, which is even better. I was in LA in March and what I did was to use it spend everywhere, and for Hotel and Car Rental, used my Travel Credit Card at check in / car collection for the hold on the account, but at check out/car return, asked to swap the Credit Card for my Chase Debit Card and got around £30 cash back on this, plus more 1% on F&D, gift shopping, even the Metro…

then, when it comes to cash withdrawals, it is important to note that all USA ATM charges a fee to non customers, so even if Starling doesn’t, it will pass on the ATM operator fee for each withdrawal ($3-10), whilst if you use a Chase ATM (present in virtually every states aside of Hawaii and Alaska) with a Chase UK debit card, you will not be charged ATM fee.

So, in summary, open a Chase UK bank account ASAP so you can get the physical card before your flight (the virtual card that can be added to you Apple Wallet or similar, is available as soon as your account is approved). Only thing to be aware if you are not an iPhone user, is that aside of the right android OS version, the phone hardware should also be 64-bit.

edit to add: I was a long term Starling customer from when you could hold a Euro account alongside GBP and there was no charges for conversion between the accounts. They then introduced charges which meant for me stopping to use it for that purpose (have Fineco UK that does the same but with no charges) and had few problem in Santorini that’s were exhausting to get resolved dealing with their customer service. Nevertheless I kept the Starling card for cash withdrawal abroad (I also had and still have Santander Zero and MBNA Horizon Cashback as forex free Credit Card for purchases). However, since the launch of Chase UK (I was an early adopter in late Sept 21) I have used it in Italy, Bulgaria and USA and I have simply closed Starling as Chase does everything Starling can, but is superior on cashback and US ATM and more importantly, customer service could be described as the best in the UK, even compared to Premier Accounts supposedly superior service. Also, if you have a Santander Select Debit Card, you can also use for free Santander US (and Santander in other countries, particularly Spain and South America) ATM without incurring in fees and at MasterCard perfect exchange rate. In US however their presence is limited to few cities on the East Coast.