The Wealthsimple Card Just Saved My Trip To London UK

Picture this. You are getting your accounts in order for a trip to London, UK. You leave tomorrow. Then you are checking your bank accounts and you notice weird charges you have on your Visa. You call Visa. Then they say that multiple charges are being flagged and someone is trying to book flights on a budget airline, car rentals, and tried to run even more transactions through a travel agency. It’s not you. Someone is trying to commit credit card fraud using your card.

As a precaution, your credit card company because of all of these charges has to cancel your current number and re-issue you a new card. However, the new Visa won’t get there in time for your trip. So you don’t have a Visa card abroad. You ask to go to a branch, and get a digital number, but nothing. You are stuck without a credit card abroad.

Maybe you have an American Express, maybe you don’t. Either way, there are more places that seemingly take Visa at the moment. Visa has there thing, and American Express has its own target audience.

However, my debit card is out the window, my Visa was cancelled and re-issued, now what?

What To Do When Your Visa Gets Compromised A Day Before Your Trip Abroad

With my Visa compromised less than 24 hours before I was supposed to leave, I was considering my options. Did not have time to get a new credit card, or a Visa Debit in time, did not want to open up a new credit line, and did n0t want to carry so much cash around with me. I was running out of possible paths here.

The week prior, I was looking at ways I could maximize points earned for my purchases and Wealthsimple popped into my mind.

Enter The Wealthsimple Card

I use their services for investing, so I briefly knew about their Wealthsimple card.

I found out that it was not a credit card, but a physical and digital (app-based, iPhone Wallet, etc.) equivalent to a prepaid Visa with 1% cashback benefits that go straight into your Wealthsimple account.

So, if I was to use a regular prepaid Visa, I wouldn’t necessarily know how much was on the card, there would be no benefits of cash back or anything like that.

With the Weathsimple Card, I was able to be pre-approved right away and was able to load my card up to $250 CAD and put another $250 CAD with a 1-3 business day delay.

If I found myself getting low funds, I could just offset and put more in the account as I was going along.

After the trip, after trying to pay American Express, there were 10 purchases during a 5-day trip that I had to use the Wealthsimple card, which turned out to be about 33% of my purchases for the trip, so a large amount.

The Apple Wallet app that I was using with the card to make payments also worked offline as well, which really helped me when travelling abroad.

The Wealthsimple card helped me enjoy my trip without stressing over carrying too much money with me or worrying if I am going to be able to make a payment or not. It didn’t hinder me from enjoying select restaurants, purchasing train tickets, or buying admission to cool events around London, it was just seamless, like every other day.

Main Benefit Of Using The Wealthsimple Card

When it comes to the Wealthsimple card, it seems to be giving out more benefits than most standard, everyday payment cards or low-benefit credit cards. I am talking to you, people who constantly use debit cards for daily payments. Instead, for buying your groceries, gas, gifts and daily purchases, not providing you with any additional cashback benefits, perhaps you should try the Wealthsimple Card that gives you 1% cashback that automatically gets put into your investing account that you designate toward.

This is great for consistent cryptocurrency investing, stocks or S&P 500 index investing. For something like cryptocurrency, you can automatically have it purchase Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple or any other cryptocurrency for you, helping your investments grow slowly with every purchase you make. The larger the purchase, the more you get back and invest.

Since the trip ended, I seamlessly just took that remaining spend and put it into one of my investment accounts within the day. It was easy as moving money from my chequing to my savings account. If the situation arises again where I am travelling and someone steals my wallet, if my credit card is compromised again, or maybe I just want to control and budget my spending while also getting cashback rewards, I know what to do. I go to my Wealthsimple account and transfer funds to my card and within minutes, I have peace of mind.

The Bottom Line

When it comes to being a savvy traveller, it’s all about knowing your options when things get flipped upside down. In this instance, my trip could have been compromised as much as my card was. It could have been stressful, frustrating, and embarrassing to get others to pay for me or cause delays in my trip. With the Wealthsimple card, it was like another day in paradise.

If you find yourself in the same situation, I would suggest the Wealthsimple app and pre-paid card, just to have as a backup or just to know it can be back up anytime.

If you would like to join Wealthsimple. Get up to $3,000 in cash to trade stocks or crypto commission-free! Use this code GOILXQ or use this link to sign up.

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