7 Reasons to Use the Wise Travel Money Card (2025 Guide)

Lloyd & Mandy

Click the link for your first transfer fee FREE up to $1000 OR a FREE Travel Card - https://wise.com/invite/dic/amandar1452/?utm_digital=youtubenovember25  In this video, we share 7 real reasons why every traveler, digital nomad, or remote worker should be using the Wise Travel Money Card in 2025.    After 4 years of full-time travel — across Thailand, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and now Canada — we’ve tried every card imaginable. Hidden fees, surprise blocks, and ridiculous exchange rates used to drain our travel budget… until we switched to Wise.    GET IN TOUCH: 🌏 Email: lloydandmandyenbom@gmail.com 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lloydandmandy/ 💻 Our Website: https://www.lloydandmandy.com/  TRAVEL INSURANCE THAT WE USE AND RECOMMEND: 🏥 Reliable Travel Insurance: https://www.safetywing.com/a/lloydandmandy  📱Want a Sim card that works anywhere in the world? Click here:  https://esim.holafly.com/?ref=lloydmandy&amp;utm_source=lloydmandy_youtube&amp;utm_medium=affiliation&amp;utm_campaign=q5VehUXArYA  💳 Wise travel money card - Click the link for your first transfer fee FREE up to $1000 OR a FREE Travel Card - https://wise.com/invite/dic/amandar1452  💻 Our VPN we use:https://surf

Transcript

00:00Okay guys, give me 10 minutes in this video and I'm going to convince you why you should be using

00:05the Wise Travel Money Card. No hype, just the seven real reasons why after four years of full-time

00:11travel, we switched from using traditional banks to the Wise Travel Money Card. So for quick context,

00:16if you're new to our channel, I'm Lloyd, my wife Mandy and I have been traveling the world for the

00:21past four years as digital nomads. And we've used a bunch of traditional banking cards, we've used

00:27other travel money cards and we used to get hit with surprise fees, random blocks and those call

00:34your bank nightmares. But today I'm happy to say that Wise is the card we actually use every single

00:40day for all of our transactions. And in this video, I'm going to give you the seven reasons why you

00:45should be using Wise also. Starting with number seven, which is the real exchange rate. So most

00:51cards hide the actual exchange rate that they use. You think you're paying the sticker price,

00:57but you're actually paying the sticker price plus 3%, for instance. Wise shows you the mid-market rate,

01:04the real interbank rate, and a small fee that you have to pay up front. But the thing is,

01:09you see everything before you hit the confirm button. There's no hidden fees at all. So as an

01:14example, if you're spending $1,000 on shopping while you're overseas, and there's a 3% markup with the

01:22exchange rate, it may not seem like much, but that's $30 just gone down the drain and you probably

01:27don't even know that it's happening. And if you're going on a big extended trip, like maybe you're

01:32going away for a month, if you're doing that over and over again, that's going to stack up and

01:36eventually you've basically paid the cost of your flights or your accommodation just in fees. With Wise,

01:42at least you know every cent you're spending and you can choose whether or not to accept it.

01:48Number six, multi-currency control. Wise lets you hold 40 plus currencies in one place. So in the one

01:56account, which is awesome because it gives you the opportunity to only convert what you need. So for

02:01instance, we get paid in US dollars for our business, but we can convert that to Indonesian

02:08rupiah, for example, if we're in Bali, as much as we need. So we're not converting it all at once

02:14and losing

02:14any money on the exchange rate. So often what I'll do is whatever I think we're going to spend that

02:19week, I will convert from US dollars into Indonesian rupiah. And then I'm just paying the one exchange

02:25rate and I can hold multiple currencies at the same time. I can also be holding Australian dollars,

02:32for instance, if I've got bills or anything that I want to pay back home in Australia. And then if

02:37I need to pay

02:38employees or subcontractors, I can exchange it for whatever currency that I pay them in as well.

02:44So I like to not convert too much currency at one time because it does fluctuate quite a lot. And

02:51oftentimes you convert a big amount of money and then you go back and you realize that the exchange

02:56rate's actually gone down and you lost a lot of money because you got impatient and converted all of

03:04your money at once. Whereas with WISE, you have the freedom to do it as often as you want. And

03:08it's

03:08as simple as just a click of the button. Reason number five, local account details. So if you're

03:13a freelancer or if you run an online business, for example, this is a great feature for you because it

03:19gives you the opportunity to hold local account details in major currencies. For example, if you

03:26freelance and you get paid by somebody in euro dollars, you can have local account details in euro,

03:32which means they're going to be able to pay you in the same currency. So when we invoice somebody,

03:38we can give them account details in whatever currency they're in. So if they're in Great

03:42Britain, we give them GBP. If they're in the United States, we give them USD, etc, etc. And it just

03:49simplifies the invoicing process and it makes it a lot easier as freelancers to collect payments.

03:55It's kind of like having mini bank accounts, but all under the one WISE umbrella without having

04:02to go and open up different bank accounts in different currencies. So number four is the

04:07security and the control. This is absolutely huge for us. Losing a bank card or getting our details

04:13hacked used to be a massive, massive deal. We used to have to call up the bank, let them know

04:20what

04:20happened, get the card canceled, get a new one sent out. Or even for example, if I just temporarily lost

04:26my wallet, I would go into a panic. Like maybe I left it in a taxi or something like that

04:30because my card is

04:31right there and anyone who grabs it can go and just tap it and use it. And that used to

04:37be a huge deal.

04:38But with WISE, one of my favorite features is that all you have to do if you don't know where

04:43it is or

04:44if you think that something's gone wrong and maybe somebody's got your card details, you just open up

04:49the app and click freeze card. There's also the feature on there that will give you notifications

04:55any time your card has been used. So if I'm sitting at home and I get a notification that a

05:01transaction

05:02has gone through my WISE card and it wasn't me, I know immediately to contact WISE and let them know,

05:07hey, this wasn't me. Also, a cool feature is that you can create digital online cards. So these are cards

05:14that don't actually get delivered to you in the physical form. You just go into the app, create a digital

05:20card,

05:20and this is really good for doing any kind of big online purchase. So if you're booking a hotel for

05:26instance or flights or you're buying a product online and you are maybe a little bit worried that

05:32you might get your details hacked, you can create a one-off card which means it's impossible for anybody

05:40to do anything with it even if they do get a hold of your details because it's a one-off

05:44card. It's only

05:45going to work one time. And also you can add it to your Apple or Google Pay. So you can

05:51have your

05:51digital card on your phone and then have your physical card which is what you carry around with

05:56you. So me personally, I don't really love carrying a wallet around. It's just like one extra thing to

06:01lose. So I have a digital card that is linked up to my Apple Pay and all I have to

06:06do is double click

06:07and I can use it pretty much anywhere. So number three would be super fast transfers. So we have

06:14people that we have to pay like for accommodation or video editing. We outsource some of our work

06:21for our businesses and we like to pay them on time and we find that Wise has the fastest transfers

06:28out

06:28of pretty much any platform we've ever used. Especially if the other person is using Wise and there are a

06:34ton of people that do use Wise these days. So Wise to Wise transfers are instant. If you're paying a

06:40contractor or if you want to even maybe split a bill with somebody, you go out to dinner with them.

06:45It's almost like as simple as just sending a text message. You can just click a few buttons and

06:50instantly transfer money to them. Bank payouts are fast and trackable so you're not guessing where your

06:55money will land. So we use this for things like paying rent because it is trackable. I can make the

07:03payment and then I send a receipt to whoever we're paying rent to like in a local currency and they

07:08can

07:08see that the money's been sent and I can keep an eye on it and track it the whole way.

07:13So if they

07:14question me and say hey did you send that money? I can prove to them that I've sent it. I

07:18can then also

07:18see like what date that money is going to land and what part of the process it's in. It just

07:24makes

07:24everything a lot simpler. So number two is smarter cash access. So whether you like it or not cash

07:30still matters especially when you're traveling to countries like Mexico, Bali, Thailand. There are a lot of

07:38things where you still need to have cash like you may need to tip somebody or if you want to

07:42buy street

07:43food and things like that. Most places do accept digital currency however cash is still quite a big

07:49deal in a lot of these places. So Wise actually gives you a monthly free ATM allowance and it also

07:57shows the operator fees at the machine. Like I said the biggest thing about Wise is there's no surprise fees

08:02and that applies to ATM withdrawals also. The biggest trap I've found to avoid when it comes

08:07to withdrawing money from ATMs is whenever it asks you if you want to withdraw in your home currency or

08:15if you want to convert to local currency always choose local currency. If you say home country then

08:21the ATM is going to add a crazy markup. That's just a little tip from me. Another piece of advice

08:26when it

08:26comes to withdrawing money especially using Wise is we withdraw large amounts at a time or larger amounts

08:32not huge amounts but so that we have to go to the ATMs less. So pretty much the only fees

08:38we really need

08:38to pay is whatever that ATM is charging and we figured out like wherever we go different banks charge

08:45different fees but like I said with Wise they show you everything upfront so you know exactly what you're

08:51paying when you go to the ATM and because they offer a monthly allowance for free withdrawals that's why

08:59we just take money out like once a week and we're not going over that allowance so we're not actually

09:03paying any additional fees when it comes to withdrawals with Wise. And number one it is completely transparent

09:10when it comes to pricing there's no additional monthly fees ongoing fees there's no annual fees but you

09:17don't get a fee for holding your money in the bank which is what other banks do. And just having

09:21that

09:22transparency where every time we open up our statement we're not seeing any surprise costs or fees

09:28is absolutely huge because we like to do monthly budgeting we kind of travel month to month where we go

09:34and whenever we open up our statement we're not hit with any hidden fees whatsoever and everything is

09:41completely up front and if ever we do go to make a transaction and we think the fee is too

09:45big we simply

09:46go down another route and that's what's great about Wise is if you are making transfers there's so many

09:52different ways that you can go about it and you can generally find a way to transfer to somebody or

09:57make a payment without really paying any fees at all. So now having said all of that I'm going to

10:02give

10:02you a little breakdown of how we use Wise day-to-day in our travels. So number one is that

10:08we keep rather

10:09modest balances of the currencies that we're traveling in we don't over convert the last thing I want to do

10:16is

10:16convert a bunch of money go somewhere and then realize we're not going to spend it all and then

10:20convert it back. So that's my number one tip. Number two is turn on alerts make sure you're getting alerts

10:26for every time your card is being used and also set daily weekly and monthly spend limits on your card.

10:33Also create two to three virtual cards one for subscriptions one for hotel deposits for instance and

10:40then one for just random one-offs that you want to use if you want to buy something online.

10:44At the ATM terminal as I mentioned earlier always pick the local currency and for cash withdraw larger

10:50less often and test a couple of different ATMs to see which ones charge the most. So a big question

10:57is should you just ditch your traditional bank account completely if you're a digital nomad or

11:03somebody who travels full-time and you're a freelancer? The answer is no probably not. I would say that you

11:09can do

11:1080 to 90 percent of things that you can do with a traditional bank using just wise. I would only

11:17keep

11:18a local bank account as a backup so just in case anything happens you want to have a backup right

11:24and

11:24sometimes if you're hiring a car for example they want a legitimate credit card from a big bank account

11:31sometimes with hotels they're a bit funny with that sort of stuff as well but having said all that like

11:3690 I would say 90 percent of what we can do with a traditional bank account we can do with

11:42wise. So

11:43that's it guys that is the seven reasons why you should be using wise travel money card today over

11:48traditional banks if you're traveling. I hope you found this video helpful in some way and if you want

11:54to sign up to wise you can use our affiliate link we'll leave it in the description down below as

12:00well as the

12:01pin comment. If you do use that link you will get your first transfer absolutely fee free up to a

12:07thousand dollars or your own free wise travel money card. And just to point out guys that is an affiliate

12:13link so you'll also be helping the channel as well. Another way you can help the channel is by liking

12:17this

12:17video share it with a friend and subscribe. That's all for today guys and we'll see in the next one

12:22cheers

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