Multi-currency cards for travel: fees, limits and the weekend markup

A multi-currency card holds a balance in several currencies and pays abroad from it, converting only when the currency you need is missing. Their marketing says "no foreign fees". The fee schedules say something more specific: a free ATM allowance with a cap, a conversion charge that depends on the currency pair, a surcharge on weekend exchanges for some cards, and card limits that sit in a help article and not on the main page.

This guide sets two cards side by side from their published terms. Card A is a card issued by an international money-transfer company, read in its US edition. Card B is a card from a digital bank, read for its free tier. Neither is named, because the figures change by country and plan and the point is the structure of the fees. Every figure is rounded and dated, and nothing here is financial advice.

Card A's US fee page, pricing page and card-limits help article were opened and read on 2 October 2026. Card B's own fee pages returned an access error when opened, so its figures come from two independent comparisons, one published in April 2026 and one updated in September 2026, plus search excerpts of the provider's published pages. That makes Card B the weaker half of this comparison. The numbers below agree across those sources once rounded, and where they disagree the text says so.

Fee schedules are published per country, and the same card carries different allowances in the US, the UK and the euro area. The Card A figures are in dollars from the US edition. The Card B figures are in local currency units from the UK and euro editions, and one search excerpt of its US edition described a different ATM rule, noted below. Treat each number as a range, not a quote.

Both cards let a month of cash withdrawals through free up to a cap, then charge. The structure differs.

Card A counts the total withdrawn in a calendar month. Up to about $250 carries no card fee. After that, each withdrawal costs about $2 plus about 2% of the amount. On an assumed $200 withdrawal made after the allowance is used, that is about $2 plus $4, or about $6, which is roughly 3% of the cash. The fixed part makes small withdrawals expensive, so larger and fewer withdrawals cost less per dollar once the allowance is gone.

Card B's free tier counts a rolling month. In the UK edition the allowance is about 200 in local currency or 5 withdrawals, whichever comes first. Beyond it, the fee is 2% with a minimum of about 1 per withdrawal. The same $200-equivalent withdrawal costs about 4, or 2%. A search excerpt of the provider's US edition described no monthly allowance for out-of-network machines, with 2% from the first withdrawal and free use at the provider's own partner network. That edition difference is one reason to read the schedule for your country.

The card fee is only half the cost of a cash withdrawal. The machine's owner can add a fixed charge, shown on the screen before you accept it, and some countries have operators with high charges for foreign cards. Money in Japan covers which machines take foreign cards there and what the operator fee looks like.

The mid-market rate is the midpoint between the buy and sell prices on the wholesale market, the figure shown on a currency converter before any provider adds its margin. Every fee below is measured against it.

Card A converts at the mid-market rate and charges a visible conversion fee. Its pricing page lists the fee as varying by currency, from about 0.23%. The page gave only the starting figure for the card, so a full cost for a given currency pair has to come from the live calculator. Holding a balance is free, and spending a currency you already hold carries no conversion fee.

Card B's free tier does not mark up weekday exchanges up to a monthly fair-use allowance of about 1,000 in home currency. Past it, the comparisons list a fee of about 0.5% to 1%, depending on the edition and plan. A mid-tier plan raises the allowance to about 3,000 and the top tiers lift it entirely.

Both approaches differ from a payment made in your home currency at a foreign terminal. A terminal or ATM that offers to charge you in your home currency applies its own rate, and neither card's schedule controls that rate. Choosing the local currency at the terminal keeps the conversion with the card, where the fee is published.

Currency markets close from Friday evening to Sunday evening, so a provider cannot lock a wholesale rate on a Saturday. Some cards respond by adding a surcharge to exchanges made then. The surcharge attaches to the exchange, which is the step where your balance in one currency becomes another.

On Card B's free tier the sources read give 1%. A mid-tier plan carries about 0.5%, and the top tiers carry none. One comparison also lists 2% for a few currencies that are harder to trade. The window is not stated the same way in every source: one gives Friday 5pm to Sunday 6pm US Eastern Time, another Friday 11pm to Sunday 11pm GMT, and a third says "most Saturday and Sunday exchanges". The safest reading is that a weekend means a block roughly from Friday evening to Sunday evening, with the exact hour set by the edition. A competitor's comparison dated October 2025 words the charge as applying when you spend or send another currency at a weekend.

No weekend markup appears on the Card A pages read, which describe a single conversion fee. The pages did not carry a statement ruling one out, so the absence is a reading of those pages and not a guarantee.

For scale, an exchange worth 500 in local currency on a weekend carries about 5 in markup at 1%, against nothing on a weekday inside the allowance. That is small on one dinner and visible on a booking paid on a Sunday.

Card costs are small next to the per-transaction fees. Card A charges about $9 to order a card and nothing for holding balances. Card B's free tier has no monthly fee, with UK delivery at about £5 for standard post, about £6 for international standard and about £17 for express, as reported in a September 2026 comparison. Neither source set listed a fee for adding money by bank transfer, so no figure is given for funding.

Limits are where the two sets of pages part. Card A publishes defaults and maximums, and the user can change them within the maximum. For a US card the help article gives these figures:

• Chip and PIN or mobile wallet: single payment about $1,000 by default, up to $2,000; monthly about $5,000, up to $15,000.

• Contactless: single payment about $200, up to $400; monthly about $1,500, up to $4,000.

• Online: single payment about $1,000, up to $2,000.

• ATM: a search excerpt of the same help article lists about $250 per withdrawal and per day by default, up to $1,000, with a monthly default of about $1,500 and a maximum of $6,000.

The same article says that outside the US the daily limit equals the monthly limit by default and that some countries have their own caps, for example a per-transaction ceiling for Japan.

For Card B, the pages read gave no daily ATM cap and no single-payment cap. One source says card spending is unlimited beyond the monthly exchange allowance. A missing limit on a fee page does not mean no limit exists. The provider can set a lower one for a new account, and an ATM can apply its own per-withdrawal cap regardless of the card.

A fee comparison leaves out where the balance sits. In the UK, two kinds of institutions issue these cards, and they are protected differently. The FSCS, the UK deposit protection scheme, says it covers money held with banks, building societies and credit unions, and that it cannot protect money held with e-money institutions and payment providers. Those firms are regulated by the FCA instead and must keep customer funds apart from their own, which is what safeguarding means. The FCA announced stronger safeguarding rules to take effect from May 2026.

Card A's pricing page identifies the provider as authorised under the UK's electronic money rules, and it states no deposit-insurance figure. The US page read did not discuss how US customer balances are protected, so nothing is claimed about that. Card B's UK page, as reported in a September 2026 comparison, says eligible deposits are protected by the FSCS up to £120,000 per person. The same card sold in another country can sit with a different legal entity and a different rule.

The table above condenses the fee schedules. The conclusions depend on the way the card gets used, and none of them is a recommendation for a particular person.

• Cash use of a few hundred dollars a month: both cards stay inside the free allowance, about $250 on Card A and about 200 on Card B. Past it, Card B's 2% is cheaper than Card A's fixed fee plus 1.95% on small withdrawals, and about equal on large ones.

• Heavy cash use: both cards charge 2% or more after the cap, so the allowance matters less than the machine owner's fee and the size of each withdrawal.

• Spending concentrated on weekends, such as city breaks that run Friday to Sunday: a card with no weekend surcharge on the pages read, which is Card A, avoids a 1% add-on. Card B avoids it only if the exchange is made on a weekday beforehand and the foreign balance is spent later.

• Spending in many currencies in a month: Card A's conversion fee is charged per conversion and varies by currency pair, while Card B's fee depends on staying under about 1,000 a month in weekday exchanges.

• High single payments, such as a deposit on a rental or a hotel bill: card limits decide this. Card A's chip and PIN default of about $1,000 can be raised to $2,000 before the trip, and Card B's limits were not visible on the pages read.

• Balances held for a long trip: the legal entity holding the money decides the protection, and it is worth reading before a large balance sits on any card.

Fee pages are rewritten often, and the figures here are a rounded snapshot from 2 October 2026. The cost of using a card at a terminal that offers to bill in your home currency sits outside these tables, and it is the largest avoidable cost on a trip for many travelers. Open the live schedule for your country and plan before you decide, and treat a large gap between it and this page as a sign that the terms changed.