STA Travel MasterCard – facts and figures
Published: 5 December 2009
By MoneyHighStreet Staff 21 Comments
Updated: 7 December 2009
One of the many trusted issuers of prepaid currency cards is the STA travel money card. Prepaid currency cards have become useful companions for travellers as they allow you to carry money on your travels without worrying about security, convenience or exchanging currency.
Prepaid currency cards can be used like cash to pay on your travels, and many high street banks and specialist providers like CaxtonFX and FairFX. We now continue our currency card review with a focus on the STA travel money card.
Who are STA Travel MasterCard?
The STA Travel cash card is issued by the STA Travel, the world’s largest travel organisation for students and young people. You can use it in any shops in the world that accepts MasterCard payments.
It is not a credit card so you can spend only the amount loaded in your card.
An introduction to the STA Travel MasterCard
You can use the STA Travel MasterCard like cash, pay any money earned on your travels into the account, and they can even be topped up by someone in the UK.
Benefits of the STA Travel MasterCard
- Facility to hold money off the card in your eccount and transfer over when required
- Instantly block and unblock your card as and when you need to for extra security control
- No more travellers cheques or the need to exchange currency
- Manage your money and avoid getting into debt
- Use worldwide, anywhere you see the MasterCard acceptance mark – over 28 million locations including 1.5 million ATM’s
- Easy to activate – No credit checks are carried out, simply provide either a copy of passport or 2 alternative forms of ID
- The card can be topped up: With cash at over 19,500 Paypoint locations or 14,500 Post Office branches.
- Online by credit/ debit card or by bank transfer – parents or friends can also top-up your card in this way if you run out of money
- Wages or salaries can be received on the card with ease
- Share your money with friends and family by adding them as an authorised user.
- Your money can be managed 24 hours a day online, by text or via automated telephone service
How much does the STA Travel MasterCard cost?
Getting a STA Travel MasterCard costs £19.95 and £20 if purchased at PayPoint branches. Add £10 cashback to get you started. The second card is free but succeeding cards will cost £4.99.
Initial minimum load is £10, maximum amount per load is £1,500; and maximum card balance £5,000.
You can load money by bank transfer (free) or online by using your credit/debit card (3% fee).
Withdrawal fee is £1.50 in the UK and £2.25 abroad.
How can I get the STA Travel MasterCard?
You can buy the STA Travel MasterCard three ways. Online, by logging on to the company’s website; visiting any STA branch nationwide; and by calling 0845 872 0812.
MoneyHighStreet.com special offer
You can get a FREE FairFX currency card here – just sign up and load €10 and get the card free – it usually costs £9.95.
Don’t you mean MAXIMUM amount per load is £1,500?
Thanks, Peter.
You are correct and we have have updated the article to say “maximum load is £1,500.”
Anyone else had trouble topping up their STA cash card?
I’ve just got myself an STA cash card and they seem to have very specific ways of topping up even though they make it seem very easy. I’ve added two debit cards to my account to top up from and so far, every time I’ve tried to do so, it tells me that this service has been disabled on my account and I should contact customer care. They in turn, do not seem to “care” and tell me they don’t see what the problem is. I try again to avail. At the moment it seems the only way you can top up for sure with no fees is through bank transfer and even then in a specific way, with specific details which are laid out on your account section on the website.
Varied worth as far as I can see so far…
As I’m going travelling this summer, I thought the STA cash card would be ideal. I received mine at the end of March and after activating it and receiving my PIN, I started to transfer any spare money onto the cash card to save for spending money during my trip. The possibility to manage the account online is really convenient. However, when I went to withdraw some money from the card last week, it didn’t work. i didn’t think much about it but when I went to check my account online later that day, it said the account has been deactivated. I have since then called customer service but all I ever get is that this issue has been passed on to the compliance team and I need to wait for them to get back to me….and I am still waiting now…. 4 days later! Therefore, I would recommend to spread your money out onto other cards as well and not to rely solely on the STA cash card as it can take a while if problems do occur.
I have just got back from traveling and reviewed my statement. The exchange rate they provide is shocking! I am now trying to obtain the remainder of my money and have been told that i will be charged £10 to close account and between 50p to £1.50 to get the money from cashpoint which ofcourse only give you tens and twentys therefore i wil not be able to collect all my money.
There are far better cards to use and i wish i had researched more to find a better one. It is very unclear what there rates are when you purchase this card, and i found it very difficult to top up from my bank account to the sta card and had to use the top up at the post office to do it, where you can only do £250 at a time.
I honestly cannot recommend this card and strongly advise you to look into other cards, my money didn’t go as far as i had hoped and on my return to England i found out why, because the exchange rate was so terrible, worse than my uk bank debit card!
Hi,
I just bought one, before reading many many bad reviews. Out of interest, what is the exchange rate for STA, do you know?
Thanks, Katie
Yes that £10 closure fee is a bit sneaky but they do give you £10 on the card when you first open it. Personally I didn’t have any problems using the card and used it all over SE Asia. It is a bit of a faff to transfer money and there ARE specific instructions for doing so which you’ll find on your account online (Top Up page then View Bank Transfer Details). I’ve read a lot from people who struggled/ couldn’t transfer money and it turned out they were using the wrong instructions (i.e. it’s NOT the numbers on the front of your card).
Besides that, its Mastercard/ banks who set all the exchange details and like every other card of its nature that’s available, there are going to be times when its the more/ less expensive option.
Terrible card, terrible company, ive had nothing but problems with sta and their card. I wont be using them for anything ever again i recommend you not to either. The amount of times i had my card “locked” for doing nothing wrong but enter my password on the internet is unbelievable and the people on the “customer care” line are absolutely useless and when i was forced to call them from abroad at no fault of my own they managed to rack me up a 200 pound phone bill. Thanks for nothing sta.
Do not get this card! They promise you that you save money but as someone mentioned above the exchange rate is sooo poor that your money is literally eaten up! The fact that you get charged by STA 2.25 every time you draw money and we got charged $4 from the country we took our money out in. Plus they charge you for getting money out in the uk! They put £10 on yourcar yes put you have to pay for the card inthe first place! Then £10 to close it! It is an absolute con and the account numbers aren’t raised so if you go to a third world country you are literally lost. Do not rely on this card!
DO NOT GET THIS CARD!
this card is being wrongly advertised
It is a disgrace that STA are able to continue promotion of this card to young people – who rely on reliable advise from STA which has such large student population, often first time travellers.
They are monopolising on our naivety – and charging us an extortionate amount of £1.50 for card transations and ATM withdrawals.
As someone has already mentioned – its not possible to clear your account without leaving a few pounds in there,since transactions can only be made in £5 denominations (at the smallest).
It does not work in India either, which is where i travelled when i’d bought this card….(which the salesman failed to warn me about…after having tried to sell me many of their package tours)…
Oh…and if you dont use the card for more than 12months, they charge you £2 per month it remains inactive – another ridiculous con!
DO NOT RELY ON STA…DONT BUY THIS CARD.
I have just got an STA card for travel to Thailand. I haven’t seen any recommended cards and it’s difficult to check the real costs. Most cash cards charge £10 to close, some change % to withdraw, which might be higher than the flat £2.50. In Thailand the Govt add a cost to each transaction, so STA can’t be blamed for this.
I didn’t look into the exchange cost until now, as I too believed it was Mastercard rate, but infact STA say
“Unlike other payment cards, we do not use MasterCard’s exchange rates when you use your card outside of the denominated currency zone. Instead we set a fixed “day rate” which we publish on our website.”
being a bit nerdy………As far as I can work out, for example today if you withdrew 10000 Thai Bart;
STA cost is £225 and £2.50 withdrawal fee
Halifax debit card is £207, but add 2.25% exchange rate and £1.50 withdrawal fee. Based on the Visa Reference Exchange Rate. The Master card rate is similar..= £212
From XE currency exchange £206
Based on that STA is a massive rip off, and apparently provide a poor service too!
I don’t think I will be using my new STA card after all.
DO NOT GET STA CASHCARD! I have just come back from my travels (4.5 months away in N. America, Australasia and Asia) and can confirm that they are a waste of space and money. Firestly, their exchange rates are extremely bad leaving you out of pocket plus they charge £2.50 for every cash machine transaction regardless of amount withdrawn. They sometimes took up to 6 days to allocate the money to your account, leaving you to find other ways to pay for food and accomodation. Their systems crash very often leaving you unable to access any money at all too. Be warned. Don’t believe the good stuff writen by the STA stooges as shown below. This is a real review from someone that has experienced it.
Please please please don’t get this card. If you are wondering it may have just been me, think again. I met many other travellers who used the STA cash card too and they have experinced the same problems.
Im just spreading the word so that no one else gets ‘mugged off’ by this badly run service.
Good luck and remember to look elsewhere.
Alex
Really bad card, do not get this, my debit card was more reliable/ a similar price!
it took me about two weeks to get working (various problems such as I had been given the wrong pin code), after many trips to internet cafes I finally got it working!
Another problem was they actually charge you to upload cash; i was wondering why I had uploaded £542 or something like that when i got it- i looked at my bank statement and i had actually uploaded £600 and the rest of the money had just disapeared! This in addition to the charges everytime you withdraw cash.
Plus sometimes it just didn’t work for no reason- really great when you’ve travelled miles for an activity and have to end up borrowing money off someone else!
I admit I did not research the card before I went away- next time i will be buying a different card or just using a credit card! I didn’t meet anyone travelling who had not had some problem or another with this card so it isn’t just me!
Does my employer get charger fr paying into my account
Hi guys,
I’ve read this thread with interest as I’m currently in India and have had a few issues with this card. I thought this would be a good way to keep my holiday spending money separate from my current account whilst away for 4 months, but now rather wish I’d stuck with my UK visa debit and researched another cash or credit card instead, as I’ve had to use my visa a couple times when the STA one wouldn’t work.
The card has worked to withdraw from some ATMs and not in others – and this doesn’t seem to depend on which bank the ATM is. The fee is £2.25 per withdrawal but any direct purchase transactions (ie using it in a shop or online) is free – I finally managed to use it on Cleartrip.com to buy traintickets (though I haven’t boarded the train yet so not counting my chickens just yet!) and having checked my statement online can confirm these fees are correct. So all I’m saying is – don’t panic if you have one!
I have yet to research transferring money back into my current account, but for now will keep going with both and if any further misdemeanours occur will be sure to post it here. Useful thread!
B
I too wish I’d seen the warning on the BBC web site and here and elsewhere about this card. I got conned into purchasing one by STA just before going to Thailand.
The main issue for me is that topping up is not possible from overseas unless done via relatives or friends in the UK via a UK Post Office or Paypoint.
I wanted to use Nationwide Internet Banking transfers whilst overseas to top up the card from my Flexaccount VISA / Debit account. I have just lost another £10 trying this out. But apparently it is not allowed to load a for a £2,000 max card from a debit card.
And topping up via the banking BACS process is stated as ‘free’ – well actually no it isn’t ‘free’ at all. Nationwide charges £20 and it takes 10 days for a BACS transfer.
And in general the fees for loading and using the card are astronomical – not good for gap-year youngsters or gap-year pensioners; to say nothing about the appalling exchange rates.
We have been long customers of STA – but they have lost our trust and custom with this scam card.
Luckily I’m still within the 14-day ‘cooling off’ period and will cancel it. But what’s the betting I don’t get a full refund?
I shall raise the issues about this card with the Financial Ombudsman, Trading Standards and other financial authorities.
Corrected:
I too wish I’d seen the warning on the BBC web site and here and elsewhere about this card. I got conned into purchasing one by STA just before going to Thailand. I then ended up having to use my VISA debit card as my primary and only card; and cash. NOT GOOD.
The main issue for me with the STA card is that topping up is actually not possible from overseas unless done via relatives or friends in the UK via a UK Post Office or Paypoint or BACS. I’m not prepared to ask any of them to do this for me.
I wanted to use Nationwide Internet Banking transfers whilst in Thailand to top up the STA card from my Flexaccount VISA / Debit account. But apparently it is not allowed to load a £2,000 STA card from a debit card. They didn’t tell me that at STA. And I have just lost another £10 trying this out – but my £10 is now floating around the banking system. So right now I’m £30 down on the deal.
And topping up via the banking BACS process is stated as ‘free’ – well actually no it isn’t ‘free’ at all. Nationwide charges £20 for a BACS transfer and it takes 10 days.
And in general the fees for loading and using the card are astronomical – not good for gap-year youngsters or gap-year pensioners; to say nothing about the appalling exchange rates.
We have been long customers of STA – but they have now lost our trust and custom with this scam card. Luckily I’m still within the 14-day ‘cooling off’ period and will cancel it. But what’s the betting I don’t get a full refund? I will report back.
I shall also raise the issues about this card with the Financial Ombudsman, Trading Standards and other financial authorities. I will use this site as a basis for my complaints.
I recently went to southeast Asia and used this card and not only did they not top up my card within e time frame they advertise, they ended up leaving me without money on my card for over 7 days. As many travellers are young, and in this case female, money is a lifeline and their failure to top up my card despite numerous attempts is disgusting.
In addition their customer care is appalling. The people you answer your calls often have difficulty listening or communicating ideas. This resulted in them not even delivering my cash card to my address until 2days before my flight. I phoned 3 times to confirm my address and details and they assured me it was on the way only to find out they had been sending it to the completely wrong address.
Do not use this service!!!!!
I have bought an STA cashcard a few months ago and am leaving for my trip next week. After a day or two of research I have decided not to use my STA card as I had once intended as IT IS MORE EXPENSIVE THAN MY DEBIT CARD IN EVERY WAY.
These are my findings based on spending various amounts in Brazil:
To spend 100 Brazilian Real
Card Transaction – Debit Card: £32.46
Card Transaction – STA Card: £33.48
ATM Withdrawal – Debit Card: £33.09
ATM Withdrawal – STA Card: £35.63
To spend 300 Brazilian Real
Card Transaction – Debit Card: £92.46
Card Transaction – STA Card: £100.15
ATM Withdrawal – Debit Card: £94.28
ATM Withdrawal – STA Card: £102.50
To spend 600 Brazilian Real
Card Transaction – Debit Card: £194.73
Card Transaction – STA Card: £200.29
ATM Withdrawal – Debit Card: £198.52
ATM Withdrawal – STA Card: £202.54
As you can see, it’s cheaper to use my debit card.
STA don’t charge you for card transactions and have a competitive fixed amount for ATM withdrawals BUT their exchange rates (which are not the ones set by Mastercard) are so poor that even with the charges that by Bank do charge, it works out cheaper to go with my bank.
You can have a second card which you can give to someone at home or someone you are traveling with which I guess is quite good.
It also costs £10 to close the account and costs £1 for every transfer from your account back to another bank account which isn’t good.
I am just going to use it as a backup for if I loose my Debit Card or if for whatever reason it doesn’t get accepted.
This card doesn’t work in Australia however at the sta York store we were told it would. It works in neither atms or stores and we are so disappointed and angry as we will soon need to withdraw money and have no way of doing so. In addition, had we not brought cash funds with us we would have arrived with no access to money whatsoever and no way of buying food and other necessities. Not good for a ‘reputable’ travel company lying to students who are taking their first long haul trip alone. So angry and disappointed, currently waiting for a reply from the customer services.