MasterCard (or Visa ) Giftcards

[Rathji]

My sister in law is leaving to go to Germany for an exchange program for 7 months. My father in law is trying to figure out a way to get her money on a consistant basis without forcing her to use interact on his bank account. He tried getting her a Mastercard on his account but it didn't fly since she wasn't 18.

I noticed a few weeks ago in the Claresholme 7-11 that they had a MasterCard giftcard , and thought that might be a good idea but I cannot find them in Calgary anywhere.

I was wondering if anyone either knew where you could get these in Calgary, or possibly another option that would satisfy their needs. We need something that can be recharged repeatedly if possible.

[ken0042]

I've bought those at 7-11 (130 ave SE) and Safeway, but I am 98% sure they are not re-loadable.

One option is if your FIL has a Paypal account, he can get a Paypal Mastercard which is a debit card. He can then transfer money from his chequing account into Paypal to re-load the card as needed.

[getbak]

AMA has the Visa ones that are reloadable: http://www.ama.ab.ca/cps/rde/xchg/am...a_Travel_Money

Here's the fee info: http://www.travelex.com/ca/personal/...asp?content=cp

• $4.50 to reload it (per transaction)
• $2 to withdraw from it overseas (per transaction)
• 5% foreign exchange markup (on top of the standard bank exchange rate)

Why not set up a separate bank account for her that he can deposit money into?

When I went to Europe last year, I opened a "Select Service" account at TD-Canada Trust: http://www.tdcanadatrust.com/accounts/select.jsp

It costs $25 per month to have it (or free if a minimum balance of $5000 is kept in it), but you pay no other transaction fees to withdraw money from the account (regular accounts can cost $5 per transaction overseas), so you only pay the current exchange rate for the day of the transaction. I believe Royal has a similar account, but it's $30 per month.

This was by far the cheapest and easiest way to have access to money when I was in Europe (didn't have any problems at any ATM anywhere, although, I only used the major banks, and not any random convenience store ATMs), and because there are no fees per transaction, I didn't have to worry about carrying too much cash.

The only thing cheaper would have been to carry enough cash for my entire trip, but that would have been impractical and potentially dangerous. It would also be impractical for your sister in-law.