Tiki

I am an American living in Australia so don't get to do MS much. I have an unusual situation in that I will be on a layover in LAX and will apply for a CSP in branch due to increased SUB. Assuming instant approval and adding to Apple Pay. Then I will be going to Mexico and Turkiye. I doubt Apple Pay is accepted there and I won't have time to get the CSP in the mail. So I was thinking to go to a supermarket and buy Visa or MC prepaid cards with the Apple Pay and use them overseas for normal travel expenses. Is this doable?

danpeake

This was asked in another thread although I can't find it. Anyways, every GC I've seen says only valid in the U.S. on the front or back of the card.

Not sure if AMEX gift cards can be used abroad. You'll want to check around on that.

Apple Pay is widely accepted. Pretty much any place that allows tap will work with Apple Pay.

Not all U.S. grocery stores will let you use Apple Pay for GCs. If they want to match the card and the ID, the Apple Pay "card" doesn't have your name on it and some cashiers may balk at that.

Tiki

Wow, that is good to know. In Australia not everywhere is set up for Apple Pay but the supermarkets are. And I haven't tried to use a prepaid gift card from here overseas, I think they work for online things. I know you can't withdraw cash at an ATM with an Aussie based Visa/MC prepaid gift card or we would all be doing it.

Possibly some places in Mexico might take the Apple Pay but I don't think anywhere in Turkiye accepts it. Happy to be proven wrong though. I just want to get a head start on making the minimum spend as $4000 USD in 3 months is a big ask from me unless I am travelling.

danpeake

How sure are you that you can add that card to Apple Pay once approved? I’m not aware that Chase allows that without having the physical card. Capital One does though.

radonc1

Reasoning is fairly simple.
IF you can buy a dollar denominated GC in the states and take it to Australia, then the servicer or bank backing the GC will be responsible for the forex rate dependent upon the date the card is used and where. That would be nightmare for a bank that basically is only on-line and in the States to administer and cost a pretty penny to boot. So they don't.

I do wonder whether one could pay a foreign bill, such as a restaurant bill that has been automatically converted from the country of origin's currency into US dollars with a US gift card. Furthermore, do foreign countries sell VGCs denominated in Euro or Pounds?

Although I suspect that most here are too young to remember, the way banks got around sending tourists overseas with money before CCs was with traveler's checks backed by Amex or Visa. I think those went the way of the wind, but I still have some, and they can be cashed out overseas into foreign currency at the current prevailing forex rate plus a fee.

Bigzamboni

It's been a few years, but I have used prepaid MC in Canada even though they said valid only in the US. I can't recall the issuer, but it was most likely a card serviced by BHN. Tried them at Costco which is MC only in Canada, and they worked. Also been a few years, but have used prepaids to make some payments in Euros online. Those were processed by PayPal Germany, but the card wasn't attached to a US PayPal account. IIRC I tried it to get around a credit card payment fee, and they were recognized as debit. In some of the cases, the exchange rate that was used when the payment was pending was different from what was used when the transaction posted and I ended up with a balance that was a few cents in the negative. I don't recall ever seeing any other international use fees hit any of the cards, but I did finish them off before any of the pending transactions posted just in case.

radonc1

I think that Costco in Canada would have been delighted to take your US$ denominated VGC and charge it with a Canadian dollar rate, since a Canadian dollar is worth about $0.80 US$. So you were getting a 20-25% haircut if the exchange was 1Canadian to 1 US dollar.

I also imagine that PP had (or has) some method of using debit cards denominated in dollars to pay for goods denominated in Euro. Where they would make their money would be the exchange rate that they charged you. Are you still able to use PP to pay for foreign goods?

Interesting points, however.

Bigzamboni

No haircut involved. The purchases in both cases weren't charged 1:1 but actually authorized at a rate equal to or very close to MC/Visa's daily forex rate at the time of purchase and settled at/close to the daily on posting, which is how the small negative balances sometimes occurred. In the case of where PayPal was involved, it's possible they had a way to process it on a US-Debit network, any that is why they recognized it as a debit-transaction and not credit as usually happens when using a debit card abroad, but I opted out of using their exchange rate and had the card charged in Euros.

I can't remember the last time I even tried it to be honest, though pre-pandemic is likely. I only tried it the first time when I found myself short of cash at the checkout and without a Mastercard, so must have been early/mid 2018 when Chase switched a few cards from MC to Visa. I have other Mastercard cards now and haven't been back since late 2019, so it could very well no longer work. I have a real Euro-denominated debit card now so I haven't needed to try a prepaid to get around payment method fees recently, but I suppose I might try it again soon just to see what happens.

danpeake

Pretty sure the poster's card was converted first, just like a regular credit card. And the card issuer makes the conversion, not the merchant.

MDWCommuter

We did a two week drive around Turkiye in 2021 and used Apple Pay with my Apple Watch literally everywhere. So many places that it was a bummer to return to the US and not be able to use my Watch nearly as much.

radonc1

So it sounds like the merchant converted their currency into US$ and then you paid using your Apple pay a US dollar denominated bill.

I noticed that while in Ireland just last week that many Visa charges gave me the option to pay in Euros or Dollars. I didn't even think whether I could have used a VGC to pay that bill if I chose to pay it in dollars.)

However, the joke would have been on me since the establishment is more than happy to do a conversion on site as the forex exchange rate would be heavily in their favor.

I simply chose to pay using a credit card in Euros and the exchange rate for MC or Visa was very close to the day rate the charge was made. There is a huge thread on dynamic currency exchange which discusses this issue.

danpeake

I believe the poster was talking about using Apple Pay in general, not with a GC. I've never seen a GC that you can add to Apple Pay/Wallet, but I may be mistaken.

MDWCommuter

I was always able to pay in Turkish lira. The DCC choice showed up on the terminal after using Apple Pay (to which I always say a firm NO). This was for Apple Pay in general, not referring to potentially using a prepaid debit card.

Codename47

Just a quick data point. I was able to use a Visa prepaid card from Walmart (issued by sutton bank) in Australia earlier today. I used it at a Hungry Jacks and later at a grocery store.

radonc1

Was your card denominated in $US or $Aus?
If the former, was your charge at the restaurant in $US or $Aus??
If the restaurant charge was in $Aus, was the amount charged to your card converted from $Aus to $US, or did they just take $Aus off your $US VGC without any conversion at all? Because if they did the latter, you paid a 33% premium for using that $VGC at an Australian merchant.
OTOH, if the $Aus was converted to $US before being deducted, what was the exchange rate they used? That would tell us how much it costs to use a VGC denominated in $US in Australia.
But it is interesting that such a financial transaction could occur at all. Thanks for the DP.