We’re always on the lookout for ways to make travel a little smoother – and a little cheaper. And while we’re not in the business of dishing out financial advice, we do like to share what works for us on the road. One card we’ve recently started using is the SumUp Pay virtual card, and it helped us avoid the typical foreign exchange fees we’ve seen with other cards.
The headline? No foreign exchange fee and 0.5% cashback on all spend (up to £2k/month). That’s it. No complex point conversions. No tiered rebate systems. Just simple, immediate value. We’ve now used it across Europe, Asia and South America and can confirm: it does what it says on the tin.
It’s a virtual card
The card lives in Apple Pay (or Google Wallet if that’s your flavour), so there’s no requirement to carry a physical card. Perfect for when we’re poolside in Portugal, navigating night markets in Kuala Lumpur, or grabbing an Uber in São Paulo. Every transaction has gone through cleanly for us, and the app shows your spend instantly.
The exchange rate appears to follow the Mastercard rate, which is generally one of the best available to consumer card users. We didn’t encounter any hidden mark-ups or nasty surprises.
We’ve found it particularly handy for small, frequent purchases abroad where traditional credit cards either charge a fee per transaction or quietly bake a forex margin into the exchange rate. With the SumUp Pay card, you just pay the amount the retailers charges. And that little cashback bonus stacks up surprisingly fast when you’re out and about for a few days.
We can add funds to our SumUp Pay balance in two ways: either by making a direct bank transfer, or by linking a debit card that the app can automatically draw from if the balance dips too low. We’ve used both methods while travelling – the debit card top-up is particularly handy when you’re on the move and don’t want to faff around logging into online banking.
Real World Use Cases
In Italy recently, we used the card for a variety of purchases. From €1.50 metro rides to €85 dinners, everything we tapped gave us 0.5% back. Not a life-changing amount, but the point is, we weren’t paying the usual 2–3% forex fee either. For regular travellers, that difference adds up quickly.
It’s not unlimited though – we can earn up to £10 cashback per calendar month, which effectively means we earn cashback on the first £2,000 of spend each month. Still, for most people, that’s a generous cap. The cashback doesn’t go straight back into the main balance – it gets paid into a separate cashback pot in the app, which we can track and move across to the main balance whenever we’re ready to spend it.
A Few Extras
The app also lets us organise our money using what SumUp calls “spaces” – essentially separate sub-balances to set aside funds for a holiday, a rainy day, or even something as banal as the next (expensive) airport taxi. The spaces don’t earn interest, but they’re a handy budgeting tool if you like a bit of structure.
One thing worth noting: SumUp Pay doesn’t (yet) offer multi-currency accounts. Everything is held in GBP (or EUR if you live in the EU), so while it works well for foreign transactions with instant conversation at the market rate, you can’t store EUR or USD for future trips, like you might with Wise or Revolut.
In Summary
While we’re not telling you to rush out and sign up, the SumUp Pay card has earned a permanent place in our digital wallet. No forex fees, market exchange rates, and a bit of cashback on every tap? Yes please. It’s become one of our favourite travel companions – quietly doing its job while we focus on more important things, like hunting down the best seafood restaurant in town.
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